

























THE LITTLE HOUSE 
ON THE DESERT 


Books by Forrestine C. Hooker 

? 

THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE DESERT 
WHEN GERONIMO RODE 
STAR: The Story of an Indian Pony 
PRINCE JAN 
THE LONG DIM TRAIL 



The engineer always whistled an answer. 



















































»• 








































The Little House 
on the Desert 

BY 

FORRESTINE C. HOOKER 



FRONTISPIECE 

BY 

THELMA CUDLIPP GROSYENOR 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
19 24 



























* 4 * 



COPYRIGHT, 1924 , BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

First Edition 


MAY-3’24 

©C1A793143 


TO 

MY YOUNG FRIENDS 

MARIAN STEELMAN HUGHES 
AND 

HER SCHOOLMATES 

AN APPRECIATION OF MY PLEASANT HOURS 
AS THEIR GUEST AT GARRISON FOREST 
SCHOOL IN THE HEART OF MARYLAND 


WASHINGTON, D. C. 
MAY 17, 1923 


FORRESTINE C. HOOKER 






The Little House on the Desert 


CHAPTER i 

H OOO-EEE-OOO. Hooo-eee 

-ooo. 

The whistle screamed shrilly as the train 
rushed across the glaring sand toward a little 
house that stood some distance from the shining 
steel tracks. 

It was a very small house built of wooden 
slabs. The dingy yellow paint had peeled in 
many places as though freckled from the hot 
Arizona sun. But the tiny front porch was 
shaded by thickly growing morning-glory vines 
rooted in beds where sweet alyssum mingled 
with four-o’clocks and feathery stalks of cosmos. 
Not many flowers were able to live in the alkali 
soil where the burning mid-day sun beat down 
upon the edge of the desert. Only loving care 
and many buckets of water hauled by means of 
a windlass from the deep well kept the plants 
from withering. For the windmill which had once 





2 The Little House on the Desert 

supplied the house and troughs with water was 
broken, and Grandfather Ruth had been unable 
to fix it. 

Back of the vines sat Grandfather Ruth, his 
silver head bowed and his eyes closed peacefully. 

No neighbor lived within a day’s hard drive 
over the faint road that threaded across the 
treeless country and seemed to vanish into the 
distant sky. 

Hooo - eee - ooo. IIooo - eee - ooo . 

The old man stirred and lifted his head. An 
expectant look dawned on his gentle counte¬ 
nance. 

Someone moved within the house, and a child’s 
face pressed against the mosquito netting that 
was tacked across an open window. Soft, fair 
hair framed her face and her violet-blue eyes lit 
with happiness as the train came nearer and 
nearer. 

“It’s an extra! It’s an extra!” Mavis cried 
in joyous excitement. 

Her grandmother hurried to the window. 
Adjusting her gold-rimmed spectacles she peered 
over the child’s head. 

“Yes. It is a special,” the old lady agreed. 
“Someone very important must be on it. I 
wonder-” 


4 






The Little House on the Desert 8 

She was interrupted by a little cry of distress. 
“Oh, Granny, where is my handkerchief? I 
can’t find it!” 

Mavis was groping among the pillows of her 
chair, but her eyes were not turned from the 
approaching train. Then she found the lost 
handkerchief and waved it frantically close to 
the netting. 

“Oh, it must be a new engineer. He won’t 
know! ” The voice quivered and the happy face 
sobered. 

“Maybe he will, dearie,” encouraged the old 
lady. 

Again the handkerchief was waved. Mavis 
leaned nearer the window, leaned as far as the 
helpless little limbs would permit. The train 
was almost in front of the tiny house. Soon, 
like an immense, wriggling snake with one great 
eye, it would scurry from the sight of the 
child’s wistful gaze. Her lips were trembling 
now, her blue eyes misty with tears, but the 
thin white hand waved the handkerchief faster 
and faster. 

Hooo - eee - ooo. Hooo - eee —— ooo. 

Ho — ho — ho! 

“Oh, he did know, he did know!” she cried in 
a burst of joy as the train, with three short toots. 






4 


The Little House on the Desert 

dashed on its way. “That was my whistle, 
Granny. And it was an extra!” 

Grandmother Ruth’s eyes were full of tears 
as her wrinkled hand smoothed the soft, waving 
hair. “Yes, dearie, it was your whistle. You 
know that they never forget.” 

“But this was an extra!” Almost incredu¬ 
lous delight was in the child’s voice as she lifted 
her shining eyes to the face that now was smiling 
down upon her. “A special train! And, oh, did 
you see that the windows were different from 
other cars? I wonder if any little boys and girls 
were on it. Granny,” she turned anxiously, 
“do you think they saw me waving to them?” 

“I am sure they did. If the train had not 
been going so fast maybe you would have seen 
them waving back to you. It was a beautiful 
train, wasn’t it, honey-bunch?” 

“Oh—” there was a quivering little sigh of 
delight—“so fast and so beautiful—but it didn’t 
forget me, after all!” 

“They never forget!” Grandma Ruth was 
standing back of Mavis so that the child could 
not see tears gathering behind the gold-rimmed 
spectacles. “Now”—the old lady’s voice was 
brisk and cheerful—“will you be comfortable 
while I help Grandpa with the chores?” 


The Little House on the Desert 5 

Mavis nodded brightly and, when she was 
alone, settled back in the pillowed chair and 
watched the light of the setting sun flicker upon 
the distant railroad tracks. 

Ever since she could remember, she had 
watched the trains, passenger-laden or carrying 
heavy freight and sometimes cattle, rush like 
snorting dragons from strange places and dash 
on to unknown cities far beyond the unsettled 
country. At first they had frightened her. 
They were so strong, and she was so weak that 
she could not even stand upon her feet. But 
after a time she had come to look upon them as 
kindly beasts, not dragons, and she believed that 
they were carrying people to wonderful coun¬ 
tries where there were streams of rippling water, 
a great blue ocean, beautiful flowers, trees, and 
many happy children. 

How she longed to see them all the old grand¬ 
parents never dreamed as they told her of these 
places which were so different from the gray sand 
that stretched for endless miles about their own 
little home. But most of all was the longing 
to see another child. 

Mavis had been born in the little home on the 
desert, and had never been away from it during 
the eight years of her life. Though once in a 


6 The Little House on the Desert 

great while a neighbor would stop and leave 
parcels for the family, no child had ever accom¬ 
panied the visitor. 

So she pictured the ‘‘little men and little 
women” traveling on the passing trains as she 
waved her message of good will from her place 
beside the window. And then, one day, she 
had begged her grandmother that a light might 
be left burning at night, so that those who 
passed the little house would know that she had 
not forgotten her unknown friends while it was 
dark. 

Day after day, night after night, the trains 
dashed past the solitary little house on the desert, 
but never once did the friendly signal fail to 
greet them. 

Then one wonderful day, as Mavis watched a 
train approach, there had been a whistle. A 
long-drawn-out whistle followed by three short, 
sharp toots. Never before had a whistle sounded 
at that point, for there was no need to signal on 
a lonely desert where the engineer’s eyes could 
see for many miles. 

Breathlessly the child had waited for the com¬ 
ing of the next train after that, hoping, yet not 
daring to hope, that it, too, would give its call 
in answer to her signals. The old grandparents 


The Little House on the DeseH 7 

waited as anxiously as Mavis, and their joy was 
as great as hers when the following train also 
sent its greeting to the unknown friend who 
lived in the little home. 

Hooo - eee - ooo. Hooo - eee - ooo. 

Ho — ho — ho! 

It rushed on its way while Mavis sat with her 
little hands clasped in ecstatic joy. For now she 
knew beyond question that the whistle had been 
an answer. 

On many nights after that when she lay unable 
to sleep because of the pain in her back and 
the weight of her tired limbs, she listened for 
the friendly message to quiver across the silent 
desert. When it came she would lift herself 
upon her elbow and watch the gleaming eye 
blinking at her until it had passed, followed by 
myriads of lights twinkling like gigantic fireflies. 
Then with another and fainter whistle the train 
was swallowed up in darkness. 

Mavis’s lips which had been pressed tightly 
together to keep back the least whimper of pain 
would relax into a beautiful smile as she lay back 
upon her pillow. 

“They did not forget!” she would whisper 
softly, and peace would come with the thought. 
Peace and sleep* 






CHAPTER II 


I T HAD been a beautiful spring day and the 
sun was just touching the distant edge of 
the desert, like a huge golden cup on a silver- 
gray saucer. 

Mavis, on the front porch where the old folks 
had carried her chair, could see a long distance 
in three directions. At the side of the house 
toward the back her grandparents were busy feed¬ 
ing the chickens and caring for the cow and calf. 

A few years before, her father, William 
McKinley Ruth, had kept the little home in 
fine shape. There had been a nice bunch of 
milch cows, turkeys, and a great many chickens. 
He had also made a vegetable garden. Mavis 
could remember it all, and how tall and strong 
he had been when he carried her in his arms. 
And always he had been whistling or singing. 
Then he had gone away and had never come 
back to them. 

Since that time the cows had been sold, one 
by one, and the turkeys and chickens had stead- 
s 


9 


The Little House on the Desert 

ily decreased in numbers. But the old couple 
worked cheerfully together about the little home. 
If they were ever sad Mavis did not see it. 

As she watched them now. Grandfather Ruth 
was throwing wheat to the chickens. They 
crowded about his feet, some of them jumping 
up at his hands. A young rooster with a single 
tail-feather and a few feathers on his long, thin 
neck, stood aside from the other chickens, 
twisting nervously. Mavis saw him and her 
eyes began to twinkle. She leaned forward, 
waiting. 

Cautiously the scrawny rooster stretched to 
his utmost height. He flapped his ragged wings, 
curved back his neck, and his flat breast swelled. 
Then he opened his beak. 

“Who’s afraid of who?” 

Mavis knew perfectly well what would fol¬ 
low that squawky attempt to crow. At the first 
broken note a handsome, pompous rooster with 
gorgeous red comb and magnificent tail-feathers 
started indignantly and looked about until he 
discovered the culprit. 

The hens surrounding the handsome rooster 
scuttled out of his way, as with angry red eyes 
he dashed across the yard, his gold and bronze 
tail-feathers streaming like a banner of war. 


10 


The Little House on the Desert 


The half-finished crow ended hastily and the 
scrawny rooster ducked and ran, followed by 
the red rooster. Around and around they went, 
until they finally stopped and faced each other, 
ready for battle. The hens were darting about 
the yard, cackling loudly. 

Grandfather Ruth was on the other side of the 
corral, so a high fence intervened between him¬ 
self and the combatants. The old lady was 
milking the cow. 

“ Granny—Granny, ” Mavis called loudly from 
the porch, “ General Pershing and Happy Hooli¬ 
gan are fighting again!” 

At the warning Grandmother Ruth set down 
the milk pail and started toward the fighters, 
General Pershing saw her, and believing that 
discretion might be better than valor, ducked 
and ran. But Hooligan, evidently thinking 
that Pershing was running from him, followed 
closely behind the gorgeous streaming tail- 
feathers. This was too much for Pershing, and 
as soon as sufficient space separated him from 
Grandma Ruth, the doughty general turned and 
faced his pursuer, and the combat went merrily 
on. Hop—kick — peck—advance and retreat. 
Right wing forward — left wing deploy — cha—a 
— a - arge! All the other chickens, including 



The Little House on the Desert 11 

a couple of roosters who never disputed General 
Pershing’s authority, were calling loudly and 
bumping into each other. 

But at last Grandma Ruth cornered the two 
of them and, reaching down quickly, captured 
both. Holding them tightly in spite of their wild 
squawks and struggles to escape, she carried 
them across the corral to where the old man now 
stood. 

“I have them!” She puffed for breath as she 
spoke. “It is downright scandalous, the way 
they fight. If they keep it up they will have 
all the others fighting. They simply have got 
to stop it. I’m a pacifist when it comes to a 
chickenyard! Pershing never gives Hooligan a 
chance to finish a single crow. He ought to be 
ashamed of himself!” 

“Now, Ma,” protested the old man, “Hooli¬ 
gan is a bluffer, and Pershing knows it. That 
crow isn’t a crow—it’s a challenge, and Hooligan 
is ready to run when he starts crowing. It 
wouldn’t be natural for General Pershing to let 
it go by. I’d change his name if he didn’t fight.” 

“Well, I’m going to duck both of them in a 
bucket of water as I do setting hens, and maybe 
that’ll put an end to their scrapping.” 

“Not Pershing, Ma?” 


12 The Little House on the Desert 

“ Yes, Pershing, too. If that don’t work-” 

she paused and looked down at the gasping 
roosters clutched tightly in her arms, “well, I’m 
afraid we’ll have to kill one of them, even if we 
can’t eat ’em afterward. Pershing’s too tough 
and Hooligan’s too thin.” 

There was a crash back of them and as the 
old folks turned, Grandmother Ruth dropped 
the two roosters. The calf, grubbing away at 
the box of bran, had caught a thin, trailing rope 
about the bucket of fresh milk, most of which 
was already trickling over the sand. The old 
lady rescued what was left in the bucket while 
her husband seized the rope end. 

But the gate was open and the cow dashed out, 
and the calf, which was big and strong, started 
after her. Grandfather Ruth clung to the rope, 
and his wife, seeing that he was unable to hold 
the calf, hastened to shut the gate. The cow 
bellowed outside and the calf bawled inside the 
corral. Grandfather wiped his moist brow, and 
the two old folks exchanged smiles. 

“You saved the day, Ma, that calf was too 
husky for me!” 

“Oh, dear!” she cried hopelessly. “Those 
roosters are at it again. There is nothing else 
to do but kill one of them.” 


The Little House on the Desert 13 

“All right, Ma,” the old man said in a matter- 
of-fact voice, “which one shall I kill—General 
Pershing or Happy Hooligan?” 

Grandmother wavered. “I guess we’d better 
wait awhile,” she spoke hesitatingly. “Maybe 
they will be more friendly.” 

“You’d better let ’em fight it out to a finish,” 
advised her husband as he carried the almost 
empty milk pail to the kitchen. 

Grandmother Ruth, leading the way, did not 
see her husband’s broad smile. Each time the 
roosters fought, Grandmother Ruth was positive 
that one must be killed for the sake of peace, 
but each time the old man asked which one 
should be slaughtered, she always made the same 
reply. He knew that those two roosters would 
live to die of old age, even though they battled 
perpetually. Only a stray coyote would be 
able to settle a feud that had begun as soon as 
the two roosters had emerged from their shells— 
brothers, but sworn enemies. 

However, the sun had set and there would 
be no more crowing until sunrise the next morn¬ 
ing, for it was the dark of the moon. The 
battle of the barnyard had ceased until the next 
day. 

Grandfather Ruth went through the little 


14 The Little House on the Desert 

kitchen and then from a small dining room he 
passed into a cheerful sitting room. 

The carpets of the house were all made by 
hand from many colored materials Grandmother 
had cut into strips and sewed together, and later 
woven into different designs. Below the coal-oil 
lamp which hung from the ceiling of the sitting 
room dangled many little squares of perforated 
cardboard, each one worked with bright red 
worsted designs, and to each of the unattached 
corners of these squares hung a tiny tassel. 

Grandmother Ruth called this an “air castle,” 
and as it swayed back and forth in the slightest 
breeze, Mavis thought it very beautiful. But to 
her the most beautiful things in the house—the 
most beautiful things in the whole world—were 
three pictures that hung on the sitting-room 
wall side by side. 

One was a picture of President McKinley, and 
on it, in the handwriting of the President him¬ 
self, was written: “For Chub with best wishes 
from his captain.” Over this picture hung a 
small silk flag. 

Next to it was the picture of a young soldier 
in dark blue uniform—the uniform that had been 
worn by a private in the days of 1861. Grand¬ 
father Ruth had then been young and strong 


The Little House on the Desert 15 

and his blue eyes clear and bright as he had 
marched behind Captain McKinley. 

Mavis was not the grandchild, but the great¬ 
grandchild of the old couple. Her own father 
had been their grandson. He had been very 
delicate when his parents had left him an orphan. 
So the grandfather and grandmother had brought 
him West with them, and had raised him to 
manhood in Arizona, where he had grown strong 
and well. 

The third picture hanging on the wall of the 
Ruth home was that of a smiling, boyish soldier 
wearing the same kind of uniform that all other 
American boys had worn in France. It was the 
picture of William McKinley Ruth, the father of 
Mavis and the grandson of the old people. 

For a long time after he had gone overseas, 
the family received brave, cheerful letters. 
Then they heard nothing more from him, and 
one day old William Ruth hung a flag above 
the picture. The flag had a single gold star 
which told that the father of little Mavis had 
given his life for his country. 

There was never a tear on the cheek of Mavis’s 
mother when she stood so often and looked at 
the pictures of the three soldiers who had each 
done his best to serve his flag. 


16 


The Little House on the Desert 

After that the family managed to get along 
fairly well, for there was a small income from 
the Government in recognition of the service 
rendered by Grandfather Ruth, and later by his 
grandson. When the old man drove to town for 
supplies, the two women took care of the ranch 
and of Mavis. The nearest town was sixty 
miles distant, and it took two days’ driving to 
reach it, but none of them felt it a hardship, for 
they were happy together. 

Out on the desert they had joined in the prayer 
of thanksgiving that went up from all over the 
world when the terrible struggle in Europe ended. 
Glad that other soldier boys were going to return 
home to those who loved them. Proud that 
William McKinley Ruth had served with honor. 

And then one day a year later Mavis’s mother 
did not rise at dawn. At sunset that day she 
went to sleep quietly with a beautiful smile on 
her lips, and little Mavis was left to the care of 
the old grandparents. 

The nearest neighbors, who lived thirty miles 
away, came to the family in the hour of sorrow. 
Down in the corner where only one dwarfed 
apple tree struggled to live, they made a grave 
for Mavis’s mother and built a picket fence 
about it. 


The Little House on the Desert 17 

So the light that gleamed in the window of the 
little house on the desert shone not only for 
the strangers on the passing trains, but also fell 
across the little mound that marked the resting 
place of Mavis’s mother. 

Her father’s grave, Mavis felt, was where 
many people visited and honored it, for her 
grandmother had told her that each nation had 
made a grave for an Unknown Soldier who had 
died on the battlefield, and that she must always 
remember that her own father was an unknown 
soldier. So it might be he who slept in the hon¬ 
ored place which America had dedicated to the 
Unknown Soldier—an unidentified soldier whose 
body had been brought back with highest 
honors to the country for which he had given 
his young life. In Mavis’s room hung a pic¬ 
ture of the beautiful monument in Washington. 

Her little heart was full of pride when she 
looked at it. For to her the tomb of the Un¬ 
known Soldier, honored by all America, was 
really the tomb of her own father—William 
McKinley Ruth. 


CHAPTER III 


M AVIS, looking across the flat country, saw 
a tiny black speck that moved. She knew 
that it was not a train, for it was moving too 
slowly. 

“Granny, something is coming, but it is too 
far away for me to see what it is. I think it 
must be someone on horseback.” 

“Must be from Brown’s ranch,” the old lady 
answered. She went to the porch and lifted 
her hand to shade her eyes against the brilliant 
glare of the midday sun while she squinted 
across the flat. Tiny little wrinkles about the 
eyes of those who live on the desert form what 
is often called the “desert squint,” and these 
wrinkles showed even through her spectacles. 

“Probably someone is bringing our mail,” 
Grandfather suggested as he filled his pipe and 
then rocked gently back and forth in his pet 
chair on the porch. 

So the three of them waited while the speck 
grew more distinct, and finally they saw that it 
was a man riding a horse and leading a pack 
18 


19 


The Little House on the Desert 

horse. On the back of the second animal was 
a huge roll of canvas, roped securely. The rider 
reached the gate and lifted a large cowboy hat 
as he halted and dismounted. 

Grandma smiled a welcome as though she had 
known the man all her life and had been expect¬ 
ing him as a guest. But that was the custom of 
the lonely places of the West. Grandfather 
Ruth, who had deserted his chair, stood beside 
the open gate holding out his hand in friendly 
greeting. 

“Good evening,” the stranger spoke in a 
pleasant voice. “May I camp here for to¬ 
night?” 

“You are welcome to stay as long as you 
please,” Grandpa Ruth answered cordially. “I’ll 
show you the stable so you can put up your 
horses.” 

Together they walked to the little corral. 
Grandfather chatted while the younger man 
took the saddle from his horse and unloaded the 
pack animal, and then Grandmother joined them. 

“I just came out to say that we have an extra 
room in the house, so you won’t need to pitch 
your tent for to-night.” 

She was studying the stranger’s kindly brown 
eyes and thin, pale face. Even the desert sun 


20 The Little House on the Desert 

had not been strong enough to hide the pallor, 
and Grandmother’s eyes held a pitying look when 
she noticed the man’s little cough. 

“That is good of you.” The newcomer smiled. 
“But you see, I am sleeping in a tent because 
the doctors back East told me to come out to 
Arizona. They said I would get well here if I 
stayed outdoors all the time.” 

The old lady nodded. “Well, that won’t 
keep you from eating a home meal inside our 
house, anyway. So when you get the dust 
washed off I’ll have dinner on the table. I was 
just about to serve it when Mavis saw you com¬ 
ing, so we waited for you to get here.” 

“Nothing ever stirs but Mavis sees it,” the 
old man said as the three of them walked toward 
the house, leaving the two horses to cool off be¬ 
fore being watered and fed. 

A short time later the stranger, who had 
washed and brushed himself in the little spare 
room, entered the front room where Mavis had 
already been carried by the old folks. She 
looked up with a shy little smile when the young 
man was seated opposite her at the dining table. 
Then her head bowed as Grandpa Ruth gave 
thanks for the food and the mercies God had 
bestowed upon them. 


The Little House on the Desert 


21 


Grace over, Grandma began helping them to 
the plain but appetizing meal, while the stranger, 
after glancing from one to the other, said in a 
pleasant, quiet voice, “ You did not ask my name. 
It is Royal Kent. I have been very ill— 
pneumonia—and my doctor told me he could 
do nothing more for me, but that there was a 
fighting chance if I went to Arizona and lived on 
the desert where it was high and dry, and slept 
outdoors. So I got my outfit together and am 
following his advice.” 

“You are welcome to stay here as long as you 
want,” the old lady spoke warmly. “Your 
doctor was right. When we first moved here 
our little grandson was in mighty bad shape, and 
his cough was dreadful. But in a year he was 
as well and strong as any boy could be. So we 
took up our homestead claim and stayed right 
here, even after he was married and Mavis had 
been born.” 

“That gives me real faith,” Kent smiled, and 
though he wondered about Mavis’s father, he did 
not ask any questions. The old folks had taken 
him on faith and had welcomed him into their 
home without hesitation. He knew that was 
the custom of isolated places of the West, and 
that the law of hospitality commanded that no 


22 The Little House on the Desert 

human being should be turned away from food 
or shelter. For where houses were miles and 
miles apart, death followed every traveler’s trail 
very closely. It was so easy to lose a trail in a 
sand storm, to find no water, or to wander around 
in a circle until the heat and thirst brought 
insanity and death. So hospitality was the 
first law of the unsettled sections and was not 
refused even to an enemy or an outlaw. 

Mavis listened quietly as the visitor spoke of 
places and things about which she had heard her 
grandparents sometimes talk, but there were 
many things he mentioned that were new to them 
all. 

Sometimes they laughed together, and even 
Mavis joined in the mirth, for Kent had seen 
funny things in his journeyings. The meal fin¬ 
ished, the old lady rose and gathered the dishes, 
but Kent followed her to the kitchen, and when 
she started to pour steaming water into her dish- 
pan, he said: 

“Please let me help with the dishes. I’m 
used to it, you know, and I won’t break them.” 

“No,” was the decided reply. “You go back 
and talk with Pa. You might help him carry 
Mavis into the front room, if you want.” 

So Kent lifted the chair very carefully and 


The Little House on the Desert 23 

Mavis smiled up at him as he set it down beside 
her grandfather’s. The old man patted her hand 
gently before he settled down for his after-supper 
pipe, and while he talked to the visitor, Kent, 
who did not smoke, was studying the face of the 
child, and noting also the crude chair that had 
been roughly constructed to permit its being 
moved from room to room. 

Grandmother Ruth, with a fresh white apron 
tied about her waist, joined them at last. In 
her hands she carried a hank of worsted. Mavis 
held out her own hands so that the skein might be 
slipped over them, and the old lady rolled the 
long thread into a large ball. That finished, 
Mavis opened a little bag which hung at the 
side of her chair, and from it she took a half- 
finished baby sock on which she began knitting 
swiftly. 

Grandma Ruth and Mavis, in their spare mo¬ 
ments, knit many sacks and baby socks which 
were sent off to a store in a big city and sold. 
This provided a little extra money, but the great 
thing was that it gave Mavis occupation for her 
long, long days. v 

Now as she knit and listened to Royal Kent 
talking, at times her hands would fall idly into her 
lap and her eyes had a far-away look in them. 


24 The Little House on the Desert 

He talked about places he had seen in distant 
countries, of things in big cities of the world, and 
though such stories would have been nothing un¬ 
usual to another child, they were like wonderful 
fairy tales to the little crippled girl who had never 
seen anything except the gray, treeless country 
and the shining steel tracks on which the trains 
dashed past the house. 

When Kent finished talking and rose to say 
good-night, he did not notice the wistful look in 
Mavis’s eyes. She was wishing, oh, so much, 
that he would not go away the next day. But 
she did not say the things she was thinking. 

Grandma laid her hand on Kent’s arm. “You 
have had a hard day riding, and it won’t hurt 
you to sleep in a house for one night,” she 
urged. “I have fixed up the room for you. It 
hasn’t been used for some time,” her voice 
trembled a little, then went on cheerfully, “but 
it has been aired and is all ready.” 

Kent hesitated, fearing he was causing trouble, 
but when he suggested that, the old folks in¬ 
sisted so warmly that he finally thanked them 
and accepted the offer of the room. 

“Time for bed, Mavis dearie,” Grandma 
Ruth turned to the child. 

But Kent went quickly to the side of the 


The Little House on the Desert %5 

chair. “Let me carry you/’ he said, and before 
either of the old folks could speak he had lifted 
Mavis and the chair and crossed halfway to the 
bedroom toward which she nodded. The door 
was open. 

“By the window, please?” Mavis asked hesi¬ 
tatingly. 

Kent set the chair down in its accustomed 
place. “Is that right?” 

“Just where it always is. You see,” the child 
smiled up at him, “I always have my chair by 
this window so I can watch the trains go past. 
They couldn’t see me signal from any other win¬ 
dow, and I don’t like to miss one of them.” 

It was very dark on the desert now, and as 
Kent turned to leave the room Grandmother 
Ruth brought a lighted lamp and set it on a small 
table beside the window. Kent looked at the 
pathway of light that shone from the lamp. 

Far across the distance quivered a tiny yellow 
speck, as though in answer to the light in the 
window. Larger and larger, nearer and nearer, 
the speck slowly changed to a huge glowing 
eye as the train thundered over the sand, puffing 
like the heavy breathing of a powerful animal. 
And the little house shook and trembled as 
though in sudden fear. 


26 


The Little House on the Desert 


IIooo - eee - ooo. Hooo - eee —— ooo. 

IIo — ho — ho! 

It screamed as it dashed on its way past the 
little house on the desert, over the dim distance 
and through the dark night to far-off places. 

Mavis laughed happily and looked up at 
Royal Kent. 

“They never forget,” she said. “That is my 
whistle!” 

“Good-night, little Mavis,” Kent spoke very 
softly. Then leaning down he kissed her up¬ 
turned face and went out of the room. 






CHAPTER IV 


T HE next morning Kent helped Grandpa 
Ruth with the chores, so that Grandmother 
Ruth did not have to do anything except her 
housework. Usually she milked the cow and fed 
the chickens each morning before breakfast, 
while the old man carried wood into the kitchen 
and hoisted buckets of water from the well. That 
was the only way of obtaining water since the 
windmill had been out of order. But Kent did not 
mind hauling water, and his help made the work 
much lighter for the two old folks that morning. 

After breakfast they all sat on the porch where 
the thick vines shaded them from the direct 
rays of the sun. So interested were they in the 
things Kent was telling, that none of them no¬ 
ticed how quickly the time had passed until a 
knitting needle slipped from the old lady’s hand. 
She leaned over to pick it up and started in sur¬ 
prise as she noticed the position of the shadow 
on the porch floor. Then she turned and looked 
up incredulously at the sun. 

27 


28 The Little House on the Desert 

“Bless my heart! It’s noon already, Pa. I 
thought it was only ten o’clock, I was so inter¬ 
ested. I must hustle to get lunch at once.” 

Kent, too, was on his feet. “And I must get 
ready to go on my way,” he said. “I can’t tell 
you how I have enjoyed being here with you and 
knowing you all.” 

Grandmother saw the wistful look in Mavis’s 
eyes and the sobering face of Grandpa Ruth. 
The old lady understood how they felt. 

“I don’t see that you’ve got to hurry along,” 
she said to Kent. “Your doctor said any place 
on the desert, and now you’re here, you’d better 
stay over a day or so with us. We’d be glad to 
have you do it. Wouldn’t we, Pa?” 

Kent saw the answer in the old man’s eager 
face, and Mavis held out her hands, saying, 
“Please, Mr. Kent, won’t you stay with us?” 

The young man smiled as he replied, “Hon¬ 
estly, that was what I wanted to do from the 
very first moment I reached your gate, but I 
thought you would get tired of having me here, 
and so I was going to move along to-day.” 

With that the matter was settled, and after 
lunch, which was a very merry one, Kent 
opened his packroll and proceeded to pitch his 
tent not far away from the little house. He car- 


The Little House on the Desert 29 

ried Mavis to the end of the porch, so he would 
be able to talk to her as she watched him work. 

There was a wonderful folding bed, folding 
chairs, folding table, and as Kent unpacked his 
outfit, he talked gayly. 

“You see, I’m a traveling magician, Mavis. 
Here I have dropped down out of nowhere with 
my magic carpet. Presto!” he picked up a tent 
pin and waved it solemnly. “Here is my home, 
all ready to be set up by my invisible slaves. 
My bed, my table, my chairs—and here,” he 
smiled mysteriously, “is a rubber bathtub. Now, 
what do you think of that on a desert where 
most of the time you can’t find water to drink! 
Only a real magician would have known that a 
bathtub ought to go in this pack.” 

So Kent rambled on with his fairy tales, acting 
each thing as he spoke of it. Mavis laughed 
merrily and clapped her hands, and the old lady, 
hearing it, came to the door and smiled as she 
took off her spectacles and wiped them. There 
must have been dust on the glasses, for she did 
not see very clearly just then. 

When night fell Kent’s magic home was ready 
for him. A piece of canvas made a carpet and 
a bright Navajo blanket covered the cot. 
Smaller blankets of gay colors were thrown here 


30 The Little House on the Desert 

and there on the canvas floor. The folding table 
was heaped with boxes of writing paper and a 
small black box also rested on it. 

There were pots and pans for cooking purposes, 
but Kent had carried them all into the little 
kitchen, whistling merrily as he drove nails and 
hung them where they could be conveniently 
reached. The old lady’s smile was reflected in 
the shining tins. 

“As long as this is to be a family home for us 
all,” said Kent, “I am going to do my share of 
the work. To-morrow we shall arrange a regular 
schedule. That will prevent any family quar¬ 
rels, you see.” 

Grandmother Ruth’s step was lighter that day, 
and the old man’s smile was beautiful to see. 
Somehow to them, as they heard Kent’s gay 
whistle, it was like having Mavis’s father with 
them once more. And Mavis kept her blue eyes 
constantly on the new member of the family, as 
though she feared that he really might vanish 
in some magic way. 

After Mavis had said good-night and the lamp 
had been put in its accustomed place at the 
window, the old folks and Royal Kent sat in 
the front room talking far into the night. And 
the next morning when Grandpa Ruth awakened 


The Little House on the Desert 31 

he heard Kent’s cheerful whistle and the rattle of 
a tin milk pail which was being lifted down from a 
nail. Kent was already busy with the morning 
chores. Leaving the lighter duties for the old 
man he had assumed all the heavier work. 

That day Kent made a careful study of the 
chair in which Mavis spent most of her time. 
Then he had a talk with Grandma, and as a 
result she found four casters that had once been 
attached to a bed. 

Very gently he transferred Mavis from the 
highbacked rocker to another chair, from which 
she watched him hammer and saw until he had 
fashioned a crude wheeled chair. The four legs 
were nailed firmly to narrow slabs, like a sled, 
with each end of these slabs resting upon the 
casters, so the chair could roll easily from room 
to room. After that Mavis was lifted back and 
moved without trouble about the house and 
porch. 

That accomplished, Kent hit upon the idea of 
making a little wagon, the wheels of which he 
sawed from thick boards. Around the outside 
of the solid wood wheels he nailed pieces of tin 
which he had removed from some empty boxes. 

It was a day of great excitement in the little 
home when Kent finished the wagon and dragged 


32 The Little House on the Desert 

it into the room where Mavis sat waiting to take 
her first ride. 

Bowing very humbly at the door he said with 
great dignity, “The chariot awaits your Maj¬ 
esty.” 

Mavis clapped her hands and laughed as he 
lifted her from her new wheeled chair to the 
wagon on the porch. Then the old folks helped 
him get it down a sloping board which he had 
placed from the ground up to the top porch step. 
The wagon rolled smoothly down the board in¬ 
cline and Kent picked up the wooden tongue 
attached to the axle of the two front wheels. 

Not since her father had gone away had Mavis 
been farther than the front porch. Now her joy 
was unbounded as Kent pulled the wagon all 
around the house and out into the chickenyard 
and corral. 

While Kent was milking the cow Mavis 
watched the old folks feed the chickens. Then 
Grandfather Ruth gave her a little tin pail with 
wheat, so that she also might toss the grain to 
the excited, clucking hens. 

At first the chickens were afraid to come near, 
for the child and the wagon were strange objects 
to them. But they could not resist the tempta¬ 
tion to gobble up the wheat. Gradually they 


The Little House on the Desert 33 

ventured nearer and nearer, always blinking 
nervously and ready to scamper away if danger 
threatened. 

General Pershing, more daring than the others, 
advanced boldly to the side of the chair, and 
finding that there was no more wheat on the 
ground, flew up on the side of the vehicle and 
cautiously pecked at the grains which had fallen 
inside the wagon. 

Mavis moved gently and scattered a few more 
grains of wheat where he could easily reach them, 
and after he had eaten plentifully, General John 
J. Pershing, like an officer and a gentleman, 
stretched his lordly neck, flapped his gorgeous 
wings, and gave a crow that sounded like a 
triumphant bugle call. 

Across the yard Happy Hooligan, the reckless, 
imitated his arch enemy. Probably it was only 
done as a tribute of honor, but General Pershing, 
with furiously flashing red eyes, lost no time 
in leaping down and taking up the gauge of 
battle until Mavis’s cry brought Kent, who 
ended the combat by placing Pershing under an 
overturned barrel and Hooligan beneath an 
inverted box. The angry clucks from the two 
roosters gave assurance that the battle would 
be resumed as soon as they both were free again. 


CHAPTER V 


T HE little family found days passing swiftly 
and the work, now divided between the old 
couple and Kent, made each one’s part of the 
daily labor very light. There were many leisure 
hours during which Mavis and her grandmother 
sat busily knitting while the two men talked of 
the far-away, outside world. 

But there were other hours, when Kent disap¬ 
peared within his tent and Mavis, listening to the 
clicking of the little typewriter that was on Kent’s 
table, knew that he was writing stories of wonder¬ 
ful adventures. No one in the family except 
Mavis shared this secret. Someday Royal Kent 
would finish writing his book, and then it would 
be published for everyone to read. Until that 
day came, no one, not even Grandfather and 
Grandmother Ruth, must dream why the click¬ 
ing typewriter in the tent went on so steadily. 

It was during one of their hours on the front 
porch that Kent turned to Mavis and said, “ To¬ 
morrow you and I are going on a journey of 

S4 


The Little House on the Desert 3 5 

adventure. I am going to put you in your 
chariot and transport you to a strange city where 
funny little people live.” 

The old folks looked as much surprised as the 
child, but Kent only smiled mysteriously in an¬ 
swer to their questions. 

“Wait and see!” 

So there was nothing else to do. Mavis 
could hardly wait until breakfast was over the 
next morning and Kent had made her comfort¬ 
able in her little wagon. Then he took up the 
pole and slipped his arms into two loops, handing 
the ends to Mavis that she might hold them like 
reins. But of course she did not guide him, for 
she did not know which way they were to go. 

Kent started, but Mavis called suddenly, “Oh, 
wait a moment, please.” 

He halted and turned around to see what she 
wanted, and she looked up at him with worried 
eyes. 

“I-Shall we be gone very long?”she asked. 

The old folks came to the side of the little 
wagon, thinking that she was uncomfortable in it. 

“Not over an hour,” the young man said. 
“But if you would rather not go, you must be 
sure to tell me so.” 

“I do want to go. Only I was afraid if we 


36 The Little House on the Desert 

stayed too long that a train might pass by and 
the trainmen would think I had forgotten them.” 

“We shall be back before another train is due,” 
Kent assured her. Then taking his watch from 
a pocket he laid it in her hand. “You shall be 
timekeeper until we get home again.” 

Mavis smiled. “I can tell time by the sun,” 
she said proudly. 

“Not many little girls or boys know how to do 
that,” said her friend as once more he started on 
the way. 

And it was true that Mavis did not need a 
watch or clock, for from her window she had 
learned to watch shadows, and she knew that 
as the sun rose higher, the shadows grew shorter 
until at midday, when the sun was practically 
overhead, there was almost no shadow at all. 
Then as afternoon passed, the shadows grew 
longer and longer on the desert, until at sunset 
the rays of light were level with the ground. 

It was, indeed, a magic journey for Mavis. 
Never before that she could remember had she 
been so far away from the house, and her bright 
eyes glanced from side to side, for though the 
desert country was almost flat, here and there 
were slight elevations which made gently sloping 
hillocks. 


37 


The Little House on the Desert 

Kent trudged along, talking merrily until they 
reached the top of a small hill. Then he stopped 
and said, “Here we are, your Majesty. This is 
the unexplored city of your kingdom.” 
v, “I don’t see anything but sand.” There was 
a touch of disappointment in Mavis’s voice, 
though she tried not to let Kent see how she 
felt. 

“Wait a moment till I put your magic spec¬ 
tacles on,” he smiled, pretending to adjust a pair 
of glasses over her nose. “Now, look!” 

He sat down beside the wagon and pointed 
ahead of them, and as Mavis leaned forward, 
her eyes grew big with surprise, her hands flew 
up to her breast and were clasped together, as 
always when she was greatly pleased. 

“Oh—what is it?” 

A short distance away in the sandy hollow 
were many small hills and between these hills 
moved tiny animals of the color of the sand. 
Here and there she could see some of the little 
creatures, no larger than rats, sitting upright, 
as pet dogs sit when begging for cake or candy. 
Others ran slowly back and forth. 

“This is a city that no one can ever find 
on a map,” said Kent, “and yet it is a wonder¬ 
ful city and its little citizens are very indus- 


38 The Little House on the Desert 

trious and orderly. It is named Prairie Dog 
Town.” 

“I heard Grandpa say there was a village of 
prairie dogs not far from the house,” she nodded, 
“but I thought they were like real dogs and lots 
bigger. These are so cute! I wish I could pet 
them.” 

“Now watch them,” Kent spoke again, after 
they had been studying the little animals for 
several seconds. “I want to tell you how these 
little folks live and manage their city. Those 
chaps standing upright on different hillocks are 
the sentinels. Do you see how rigidly they 
stand? Not one of them pays any attention 
to the others, nor does he desert his post to run 
around and visit his friends, or even to hunt 
food, so long as he is on duty. He’s a regular 
little soldier, you see.” 

“But the rest keep going from one hill to the 
other,” interrupted Mavis. “See, some of them 
are talking together!” 

“Yes, that is what they are doing,” was Kent’s 
answer. “ If we could understand their language 
and were near enough, no doubt we should hear 
Mrs. Greyfur telling Mrs. Brownhead that the 
tunnel between their homes would soon have to 
be dug out again, because the earth was getting 


The Little House on the Desert 39 

soft, and if it caved in when their babies were 
playing there, some of their children might be 
badly hurt.” 

“Tunnels?” cried Mavis in amazement. 
“Honestly, Royal, do they have tunnels between 
their homes?” 

“ Of course they do. The prairie dog engineers 
when they first start to build a city make deep 
holes only a few feet apart. Then they dig tun¬ 
nels from one hole to the other, so that in case 
of danger from invading foes, or floods, the little 
citizens may be able to escape by running 
through these tunnels and reach the surface of 
the ground at a less dangerous point.” 

“What wise little things they are!” Mavis 
said softly, watching the prairie dog sentinel 
nearest them. 

“After the tunnels are finished,” Kent went 
on, “the citizens of the town get busy and 
build breastworks around each little home. I 
think there are two very good reasons for that 
work. One, probably, to protect the openings 
of the holes from floods during the rainy seasons. 
For you see, where the country is flat and water 
falls in great quantities, as it often does on the 
desert, the holes would all be flooded at once and 
the little citizens have no chance of escape.” 


40 The Little House on the Desert 

“And what is the other reason for building the 
breastworks?’ Mavis asked without turning her 
eyes away from the strange village. 

“Because on the mounds the sentinels can 
stand up a bit higher and see farther.” 

“Royal, how do you suppose they know which 
one is to keep watch? Or do you think just cer¬ 
tain ones have to be sentinels all the time, as a 
queen has to be a queen all her life?” 

“No, some way they take turns, for I have 
watched them closely while I have been wandering 
about near their villages. There are many things, 
little Mavis, that men with all their wisdom do 
not know. But wherever men or any group of 
living things abide there must be law and govern¬ 
ment. Sometimes,” he spoke as though to 
himself, “I wonder whether men are any wiser 
than the little wild citizens of earth.” He 
looked down with a smile at her puzzled face and 
added, “I call the wild creatures and birds ‘God’s 
little people.’” 

He rose to his feet as he spoke. “Now, watch 
these sentinels while I try to get nearer the 
village. I’ve tried it many times in other places, 
but never caught a sentinel napping, as I hoped 
to do. If I could catch one of these little chaps, 
we might be able to tame him for a pet.” 


The Little House on the Desert 41 

“Oh, I wish you could.” 

She watched him creep slowly across the 
ground toward the group of little mounds. None 
of the prairie dogs seemed aware of any strange 
presence, for they moved about just as calmly 
as ever. 

On top of the mounds, about twenty-five feet 
apart, sat the sentinels, and it was not until Kent 
was very near the first sentinel that the watching 
prairie dog gave his first signal. 

Suddenly the sentinel twisted his head and 
uttered a series of short, sharp yaps. The gray 
fur along his backbone rose in a little ridge, just 
as the hair of a big dog stands up when he is 
ready to fight. The prairie dog was not unlike 
a large squirrel, though his tail was not a grace¬ 
ful, fluffy brush, but only two inches long and the 
hair on it was short and lay flat against the 
flesh. 

“Yip—yip—yipj” the shrill cry warned the 
furry people of the town. 

Mavis expected to see them rush for their 
homes, but to her amazement they still went 
quietly from place to place, or nosed about 
for grass roots. Kent crawled slowly nearer the 
first sentinel. 

“Yip—yip—yip!” Again the sharp, short 


42 The Little House on the Desert 

barks. But no prairie dog moved more quickly. 

Kent was within ten feet of the sentinel now. 
The little creature saw the man and stiffened 
rigidly, while the cries of warning became more 
shrill. Finally, the “Yip—yip—yip!” turned 
into a long, quivering call, “Ya—a—a—ap!” 
and like a flash the sentinel ducked down into his 
hole, while all the prairie dogs that had been 
wandering carelessly about between the first 
sentinel and the next one vanished as though by 
magic. 

Still, the second sentinel did not move or cry 
out, nor did any of those beyond him pay the 
least attention to what had happened. If any 
of them knew that some strange, huge animal 
was crawling nearer and nearer to him, he did not 
show any worry. All of them trusted their own 
sentinel, and they were right. 

For just as soon as Kent had approached 
within the same distance as the previous hole, 
the second sentinel began warning, and only 
that last, long, quivering cry sent them scurrying 
to safety, at the same moment that the second 
sentinel ducked and disappeared. 

Kent came back to Mavis laughing. “Those 
are the best-drilled soldiers I have ever seen. I 
bet they are all running through their tunnels 


The Little House on the Desert 43 

laughing over the way they fooled me. But I 
am not going to give up. Some day I may find a 
way to catch one without hurting it. They are 
such smart little chaps that I am sure one would 
make a nice little pet after it grew accustomed 
to us all.” 

As he picked up the pole of the wagon he asked, 
“What time is it now by the sun?” 

Mavis squinted up. Then she looked at a 
shadow of a dead weed. 

“Almost eleven o’clock,” she replied promptly, 
and Kent opened his watch. 

“Right,” he said. “Time to be starting home 
now.” 

As they reached the top of the slope Mavis 
looked back at the prairie dog village. All of 
the sentinels were again at their posts, and 
the little citizens were once more moving about 
in their accustomed places. 

Kent looked back, too. He nodded his head 
knowingly, as he said very decidedly, “Some day 
I’m going to catch one of you chaps napping!” 


CHAPTER VI 


T HE day after the visit to Prairie Dog Town 
Kent started to make a box trap in which he 
hoped to catch one of the little animals without 
hurting it. 

This trap was fashioned like a box, with one 
end which lifted up. A trigger, or stick of wood, 
was so arranged inside that the least touch would 
cause the end to fall and shut the prisoner safely 
within the box. 

When the trap was finally completed Kent 
promised Mavis that she should go with him to 
set it in the very midst of the prairie dogs’ homes, 
and it was decided to take wheat and cracked 
corn as well as barley to tempt the appetites 
of the little creatures. Kent knew that the 
prairie dogs lived upon grass roots and seed, but 
whether the animals would eat other food was a 
question none of the family could answer. It 
was Mavis who suggested putting in a cookie 
and some crusts of bread. So these articles were 
added to the rest of the bait. 


44 


The Little House on the Desert 45 

Everything completed for the trip next morn¬ 
ing, Kent came back to gather up the nails and 
hammer from the kitchen floor where he had 
been making the trap. Grandmother Ruth, 
peering over her spectacles from the front room, 
called out to him, saying, “I wish you would put 
a larger nail in the wall for the captain’s picture. 
I noticed to-day when I was cleaning that the 
nail is bent, and I am afraid the picture may fall 
and break the glass.” 

“I will do it at once,” was Kent’s cheerful 
answer as he picked out a strong nail from the 
little box which was full of odds and ends, such 
as screws, casters, picture wire, and hooks. 

Pushing Mavis’s chair ahead of him he reached 
the sitting room and lifted down the picture 
of President McKinley. He placed it carefully 
against the wall, and then, removing the bent 
nail, he drove a new one in its place and tested 
it. 

“That will never give way,” he asserted, tak¬ 
ing the picture from the old lady, for she had 
picked it up and was wiping the glass with her 
apron. 

Once more in its accustomed place the kindly 
face of President McKinley smiled down upon 
them all. 


46 The Little House on the Desert 

“I wouldn’t have anything happen to that for 
the world,” Grandma commented. “ You know, 
he sent that picture to Pa, himself.” 

“But why did he write c Chub’ on it?” asked 
Kent. “I have been wondering about that ever 
since I came, but didn’t like to ask about it. 
You needn’t tell me, if you would rather not,” 
he hastened to add, fearing that he should not 
have spoken of it. 

“We are mighty proud of that,” Grandpa 
Ruth spoke quickly. “‘Chub’ was what they 
all called me when I was soldiering with him. Ma 
can tell you the story better than I can, if you 
want to hear it. I guess there aren’t more than 
two or three folks living now who knew about it 
when it happened.” 

While her husband was speaking the old lady 
settled down in her favorite chair but she did not 
pick up her knitting as usual. Her age-wrinkled 
hands lay folded in her lap and her gaze was 
fixed upon the picture. Grandpa’s faded blue 
eyes were turned to where the picture hung, and 
a ray of sunlight which just touched the old 
man’s silver head also lay across the picture at 
which they all were looking. 

“Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley,” the old 
man said slowly. “All three of them martyrs, 


The Little House on the Desert 47 

killed by men whom none of them had ever 
wronged.” 

“If it hadn’t been for Captain McKinley,” 
Grandma Ruth began speaking, “Pa would 
never have come home to me after the war 
ended.” 

Her husband nodded confirmation. 

“You see,” she went on after a slight pause, 
“Pa was only twenty years old when the war 
broke out in ’61, and we had just been married 
a couple of months. We had a little house and 
Pa was working in a store. But he never waited 
a moment. He went and enlisted right away. 
My folks lived near us, so there wasn’t anything 
to hold him back.” 

“We lived not far from Niles, Ohio, where 
Captain McKinley had been born. Pa had 
known him there. And both of us were glad, 
when Pa was assigned to the Twenty-third Ohio 
Volunteers, to find that William McKinley was 
a private in the same company as Pa. He was 
only eighteen years old, and Pa was two years 
older. But Pa was such a little sawed-off chap 
and had such pink cheeks and was so plump that 
the men in the company began to call him ‘Chub.’ 
And that name stuck the way nicknames gener¬ 
ally stick. Pa didn’t mind it one bit, though, 


48 


The Little House on the Desert 


because he knew all the men were his friends. 
Pa never did make enemies anywhere / 5 

“Now, Ma, never mind about me,” inter¬ 
rupted Grandfather Ruth. 

“Well, that was how they started off together 
for the war, and someway they got to be good 
friends. Of course, Captain McKinley, even 
if he was only a private, was educated, and Pa 
never had much chance for schooling. But that 
doesn’t count when men are marching side by 
side and fighting for the same flag. They are all 
just men.” 

“Lots of times,” the old man said slowly, “we 
shared blankets, because it kept us warmer that 
way and many times we drank from each other’s 
canteen when one canteen was empty. Then 
in April, 1862, when McKinley was only a boy 
of nineteen, he was made commissary sergeant. 
He had charge of our food supplies. That was 
a job for a real man, but he filled it. And he 
kept on going higher right straight along. 
September, ’62, he was made a second lieutenant, 
and every one of us was glad of it. Next Febru¬ 
ary he was promoted to first lieutenant; then in 
July, ’64, he was made a captain, and I was a 
private under him and mighty proud to salute 
him.” 


The Little House on the Desert 49 

“Then after he was made captain,” Grandma 
took up the narrative now, “and the regiment 
was down in the Shenandoah Valley, during 
the West Virginia campaign. Captain McKinley 
made such a fine record that he was promoted 
to brevet major. At one time when Captain 
McKinley was away from camp. Pa was on duty 
as orderly, and he was given a written order and 
told to take it to another part of the camp, and 
that there was no answer, but to be sure to give 
it to the right officer and no one else.” 

“What was his name?” asked Kent curiously. 

She glanced at her husband, but he shook his 
head. 

“That’s one thing Pa never would tell me,” 
she smiled. 

“He wasn’t really to blame, Ma,” the old man 
spoke earnestly. “It might have happened to 
any one at that time. We were all wore out and 
lots of times we marched along not knowing 
what we were doing.” 

“Yes, I know. I don’t hold it against him, 
Pa,” Grandma Ruth said gently. “Well, any¬ 
way, Pa carried the order to the other part of 
camp. But the camp was very large and Pa had 
trouble finding the right tent. He wasn’t going 
to give that order to any one else. So he wan- 


50 The Little House on the Desert 

dered around, asking here and there, and getting 
worse mixed up all the time, for something had 
happened to make a lot of confusion and every¬ 
one was in a hurry. At last a soldier came past 
and said he’d show Pa where the tent was. So 
they trotted along together till they reached it. 

“‘There you are,’ said the soldier, and Pa 
thanked him. 

“Then the man went about his business and 
Pa turned and scratched at the tent flap. The 
flaps were tied together, and at first there was no 
answer. Pa wondered how on earth he could 
find the officer if he were not in the tent. Then 
he scratched harder. 

“‘Come in,’ someone called, and Pa pushed 
through the flaps. 

“The officer was lying on his bunk and Pa 
saluted and gave him the folded piece of paper. 

“‘All right,’ the officer said, and Pa saluted 
and scrambled out of the tent and went on back 
to his own place and forgot all about the matter. 

“Four days later Pa was placed under arrest, 
but he hadn’t any idea why, till they told 
him it was neglect of duty, because he had failed 
to deliver an important order. The officer had 
not received the order to go at once with rein¬ 
forcements and the Union forces had had to 


The Little House on the Desert 51 

retreat. So Pa was tried by court martial. The 
officer swore at the trial that he had never re¬ 
ceived any such order, or he would have obeyed 
it immediately. 

“Poor Pa kept saying he did deliver the order, 
but there was no one else to back him up. You 
see, he was so rattled and upset that he had clean 
forgot about the soldier who showed him the 
tent. 

“So he was ordered to be shot at sunrise the 
next day.” Grandma’s voice quivered and her 
eyes filled with tears as she looked across at the 
old man who sat with lowered head, his hands 
resting on the arms of his chair. 

“It wasn’t so much the being shot,” he said 
slowly, “but it was knowing I was going to be 
shot that way. I did the best I knew how, and 
it hurt when I knew that everyone believed I was 
lying and that I had failed to obey orders—and 
that our boys had been killed—some of them— 
because I had not delivered the order.” 

Mavis laid her hand on his and patted it 
gently. “But it turned out all right, Grandpa.” 

He smiled down on her. “Yes, dearie, it 
turned out all right. Things mostly work out 
right in the end. Go on, Ma, tell Royal the 
rest of it.” 


52 The Little House on the Desert 

“Well, they asked Pa if there was anything he 
wanted, and he said he wanted to write a letter 
to me, so he could tell me he did deliver the order. 
He told me to believe that always, no matter 
what any one else said. I’ve got that letter yet.” 

She rose and went to an old-fashioned desk, 
and taking the age-yellowed bit of paper laid it 
in Royal Kent’s hands. He looked at the faint 
writing, but even if it had been clear and black 
Kent could not have read one word, for his eyes 
were full of tears. He handed it back to ‘ Chub’s’ 
wife, and the old lady sat holding the folded 
paper in her hands as she went on with her 
story. 

“The other thing Pa asked was that they 
would tell Captain McKinley ‘good-bye’ for 
him and say that he did deliver the order. 

“Late that night Captain McKinley came 
back, and when he got that message, he went 
right away to see Pa. They talked and talked, 
and Captain McKinley kept asking all sorts of 
questions, and at last he said, ‘Chub, can you 
describe the soldier who showed you the tent?’ 

“ ‘ No, Captain. I didn’t pay any attention to 
him. I was so glad to find the right place.’ 

“‘Would you know him if you saw him?’ 

“Pa shook his head, ‘I don’t think so.’ 


53 


The Little House on the Desert 

“‘Was he on duty?’ 

“ ‘No, he wasn’t on duty just then, but every¬ 
one was hurrying around and he was hurrying, 
too.’ 

“Captain McKinley studied a bit. Then he 
turned to Pa and said, ‘Don’t worry, Chub. 
I’ll be back again.’ 

“So off he went, and he hunted up the head 
officer of the court and told him about that sol¬ 
dier showing Pa the right tent, and instead of 
sending Pa to be shot at sunrise, the officers 
went to work to find that soldier. iVnd when 
they found him, he said he remembered Pa and 
how he heard the officer call ‘Come in.’ 

“That made a big difference. The officer felt 
dreadfully, but the doctors said that he did not 
know when Pa gave him the order, for he was 
worn out with loss of sleep and hard marching, 
and was just like a sleepwalker when Pa gave 
him that note. 

“Then when he got up, the note was on the 
floor beside his bunk, but he did not see it there. 
The striker—that’s what they call a soldier who 
takes care of an officer’s tent—had come in and 
picked up the order and laid it with a heap of 
other papers. So the officer was exonerated as 
well as Pa, and when Pa got back to his company 


54 The Little House on the Desert 

every man was cheering him and shaking his 
hand. 

“Then they stood back and saluted, for Cap¬ 
tain McKinley came up to Pa and laid his hand 
on Pa’s shoulder and said, ‘Chub, I knew you 
wouldn’t lie, not even to keep from being shot! ’ ” 

“And then what do you think Grandpa did?” 
broke in Mavis, looking at Kent. 

“I am sure I cannot guess,” he replied. 

“Grandpa cried!” said the little crippled girl 
with shining eyes. “He cried because he was 
so glad they all knew that he had obeyed orders 
and wasn’t to blame because the officer had not 
gone with reinforcements.” 

“And so that was why Captain McKinley 
wrote ‘ Chub ’ on that picture? ” said Royal Kent, 
rising and walking over to the photograph. 

“Yes”—Grandfather Ruth’s voice was proud— 
“he sent me that photograph when he was Presi¬ 
dent of the United States!” 

“Oh, Granny, tell Royal the rest of the story,” 
cried Mavis eagerly. 

“Please do.” Royal Kent went back to his 
chair. “I want to know it all.” 


CHAPTER VII 


P A NEVER saw Captain McKinley after the 
war was over and all the soldiers had been 
mustered out, until the time when the President 
was traveling all over the country. 

“We had moved from Ohio long before that 
time, and were living on a little ranch just out¬ 
side Willcox, in the southeastern part of Arizona. 
It was a territory then, not a State. Our son 
had died in the East, and we brought his little 
boy out to Arizona to live. You see, Mavis is 
our great-granddaughter. 

“We called her Pa 4 William McKinley’ Ruth. 
He was a little tad nine years old when we heard 
that President McKinley was going to pass 
through W T illcox. But when they heard he was 
not going to stop there, all of the folks were 
terribly disappointed. I guess none of them felt 
so badly as Pa and I did, though. 

“I didn’t tell Pa that I was praying the good 
Lord to make the train stop at Willcox. Some- 


56 The Little House on the Desert 

how I believed it would. It was going to stop 
at El Paso and then at Tucson, but not any place 
between. 

“I had just finished churning when a lady 
that lived in Willcox rode up to our gate on 
her horse. She used to stop and talk with us 
whenever she was riding our way. When she 
jumped off her horse to let it drink from the 
water trough, I went out to ask if she wouldn’t 
come in and have a glass of fresh buttermilk. 
So she tied her horse, and while she was drinking 
the buttermilk I told her about Pa and President 
McKinley, and how he saved Pa from being 
shot, and how sorry we were that Pa would not 
be able to see him again. 

“She sat up very straight, and her black eyes 
snapped as she said, ‘That train’s got to stop 
here, even if someone has to tear up the tracks 
or hold up the train.’ Then she thanked me 
for the buttermilk and rode back to town. The 
next morning she came back and said that the 
President’s train was going to stop at Willcox for 
five minutes. 

“We were so excited that we could hardly 
wait till the next day, when the train was due 
at sunset. Pa and I went to town in the buck- 
board and took little William McKinley Ruth 


57 


The Little House on the Desert 

along with us, so that he could see his grand¬ 
father meet Captain McKinley again. 

“When we got near town it seemed as if every 
cowboy and rancher and Mexican in Arizona were 
there ahead of us. And, my goodness! ! never 
saw so many dog fights at once. Looked as if 
every grown-up person and every child had a 
dog along.” 

Grandfather laughed. “Yes, and we tied our 
old Rover to the kitchen porch, and when we 
got down from the buckboard in town, there he 
was right behind us. He had chewed the rope 
in two and hustled along to see the President.” 

“Well, I guess he had as good a right there as 
any other dog,” retorted his wife, and when the 
old man and Kent had stopped laughing, she 
went on quietly, “There were piles of wood along¬ 
side the railroad track, ready to be lit when the 
train came into sight across the flat from the 
East. But I didn’t stop to talk to any one. I 
went straight to the postmaster, Mr. Geddes, and 
asked him to help me get Pa close up to the 
President. And he said he would do it.” 

Grandpa straightened up, “You see, Mr. 
Geddes being postmaster made him the proper 
person to tell the President how glad we all were 
to see him. There wasn’t any mayor in Willcox. 


58 The Little House on the Desert 

It wasn’t a big enough town to have a mayor 
then.” 

“ Well,” resumed the old lady, “all of a sudden 
everybody began to shout and wave hats and 
handkerchiefs, for the train had come in sight and 
was racing across the flat toward us just as fast 
as it could come. Mr. Geddes helped Pa to the 
depot platform, and when the train got near, 
you never heard such yelling, and the bonfires 
were started, and cowboys galloped alongside 
the train, shooting off pistols till you’d think it 
really was a regular train hold-up. And women 
were waving handkerchiefs and laughing, and 
crying at the same time they laughed. 

“ And there was one queer thing. I saw Presi¬ 
dent McKinley and some gentlemen standing on 
the back platform of the train, looking down the 
track and smiling. And when I looked, what do 
you think I saw? A lot of men and women, all 
dressed up as though they were going to a dance, 
and they were running along the track following 
the train. A lady in a yellow dress that had low 
neck and no sleeves was holding her train over 
her arm, and running like a deer. It looked so 
queer out there on the prairie, with those bon¬ 
fires, and the cowboys and Mexicans, and for a 
second everyone stood looking at her. Then 


The Little House on the Desert 59 

she reached the train and held up her hand, 
and President McKinley took hold of it and 
smiled down at her. ‘I brought my dinner 
party,’ she said, laughing. 

“I had been holding Pa’s hand. He was 
shaking like a leaf and smiling and smiling. We 
knew the lady in the yellow gown, but she looked 
mighty different in the yellow gown with a big 
yellow rose in her black hair, from the way she 
looked when she sat in her riding habit, talking 
to Pa and me and petting old Rover. 

“Then people crowded up, and Mr. Geddes led 
Pa to the edge of the platform, which was level 
with the train steps. 

“‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘this is William 
Ruth who served under you during the War.’ 

“I saw President McKinley turn and hold out 
his hand to Pa, saying, ‘ I am always glad to meet 
an old comrade!’ 

“He said it as if he really meant it, but I saw 
Pa’s face, and both of us knew that the President 
didn’t remember him at all. I was sorry we 
had come, for I knew how Pa had been so sure 
that Captain McKinley had not forgotten him. 

“There were lots of people shaking hands, and 
the train could only stay five minutes, so we 
turned away to give others a chance. But I 


60 The Little House on the Desert 

saw Pa’s head was bent down, and he didn’t say 
a word. 

44 Suddenly I felt him stiffen up and he whirled 
about, so I lost my grip on his arm. His eye¬ 
sight was mighty bad and I was afraid he would 
stumble. Next thing I knew he was pushing in 
front of everyone else and holding out his hands, 
while he called out, 4 Captain, don’t you remem¬ 
ber Chub?’” 

Grandmother Ruth stopped and wiped her 
eyes, and the old man’s wrinkled cheeks were 
wet with tears. Mavis’s face was lifted to the 
picture of the President who seemed to be smil¬ 
ing down on the old couple. 

“Then I wish you could have seen the captain! 
He turned as if he had been shot and his face 
was all smiling. 

44 4 Chub! Chub! ’ he called out, and he caught 
hold of Pa’s two hands and shook them again 
and again. 4 Why didn’t you say you were Chub ? 
Of course I remember you! ’ 

44 And there they stood holding hands, both 
of them forgetting that the captain was the 
President of the United States, as they kept 
talking about things that had happened when 
they were soldiering together. The train dis¬ 
patcher, wondering what was holding the train. 


The Little House on the Desert 


61 


came out. but that made no difference, and for 
fifteen minutes the train waited while President 
McKinley talked to Pa, and everyone crowded 
around not making any sound. 

‘'I saw the lady in the yellow dress take the 
rose out of her hair and lay it on the platform 
alongside of President McKinley’s foot. Her 
eyes were shining with tears. 

‘“Then the engine tooted and Pa said, ‘Good¬ 
bye, Captain. I won’t see you again. God bless 
you!’ 

“The President moved a bit, and as he saw the 
yellow rose at his feet he stooped and picked it 
up and bowed to the lady in the yellow dress. 

“‘It is for Mrs. McKinley,’ she said, and then 
everyone remembered that the President’s wife 
was inside the car, not well enough to share the 
honor that was being heaped upon her husband. 

“The train started slowly, but the President 
stood on the back platform waving his hat, and 
his voice came back clearly to us all: ‘Good-bye, 
Chub. Someday we shall see each other again. 
God bless you.’ 

“And then,” Grandmother Ruth spoke after 
a little silence, “we drove back home, with old 
Rover trotting alongside the buckboard. And 
two weeks later we received that photograph, 



62 The Little House on the Desert 

and President McKinley had written on it. 
‘ With best wishes to my old comrade, Chub, from 
his captain.’ 

“It wasn’t very long after that that the lady 
who gave the yellow rose to the President for his 
wife rode up to our gate. When she came into 
the house, I saw her eyes were red from crying, 
and then she told me that President McKinley 
had been shot. The day he died she brought 
out that little flag and put it over his picture. 

“ 4 Everyone else remembers him as the twenty- 
fourth President of the United States,’ was 
what she said, ‘but he will always be Chub’s 
I captain to us.’” 


CHAPTER VIII 


D AY after day Kent visited Prairie Dog 
Town, hoping to find a little captive inside 
the box trap. But they were too smart for him, 
though their tiny tracks showed that they had 
examined the trap. 

Each day Mavis waited eagerly, but as she 
watched from her window and saw him coming 
with empty hands, she hid her disappointment. 
Kent understood it, nevertheless. 

Then one day she saw Kent walking very fast, 
carrying his big felt hat in his hands. 

“Granny, he has one!” Mavis cried joyously. 
“Oh, I am so glad!” 

So the whole family welcomed Kent, who 
carried his prisoner right to Mavis’s room. Al¬ 
ready he had made a little cage and Mavis 
watched him lift the wire screen that formed 
the top of the cage, which was only a wooden 
box with a screened top. Very gently Kent 
slipped the soft, furry creature into the box and 
fastened the cover securely. 

The prairie dog was so frightened at first that 
es 


64 The Little House on the Desert 

it kept running around the box, poking its nose 
against the sides or standing up on its hind 
legs to push against the wire cover. Its eyes 
were very large and bright. Mavis felt sorry for 
it. Once she thought she would ask Kent to 
let it go back to its home, but when she remem¬ 
bered how hard he had worked to get the little 
pet for her, she did not like to do so. However, 
she made up her mind that if the prisoner would 
not make friends and be happy with them, she 
would ask Royal Kent to take it back to Prairie 
Dog Town. 

She did not have to say this to her friend, for 
he seemed to understand what she was thinking. 
As he finished fastening the cover of the cage, he 
said, “We shall keep him for a week and then 
if he is still afraid of us, or will not eat, I think 
we had better take him back home again. But 
somehow, I have an idea he will be happy with 
us after a few days.” 

The family had a consultation as to what the 
prairie dog might like to eat. They knew that 
he had lived on grass roots and seed from wild 
grasses, so they brought cracked corn, wheat, 
and barley from the barn and scattered them on 
the bottom of the cage. Then came the ques¬ 
tion as to whether or not a prairie dog drank 


The Little House on the Desert 65 

water. They all knew that prairie dog towns 
were far away from rivers or streams of any sort, 
and always in dry, sandy places. 

But Kent said there was moisture in the 
roots of grasses, and the little animals obtained 
liquid that way. So a cup of water was placed 
in the cage, and, at the suggestion of Mavis, 
another cup with milk and some crusts of bread 
and a cookie. It was quite a bill of fare for such 
a little pet. 

At first he would not touch anything, but kept 
trying to find a way to escape from his prison. 
But the second day he was not so restless, and no 
one went near to disturb him. Mavis could 
see him through the screen top of the box, and 
Kent, who was fixing a little flower garden out¬ 
side her window, heard her whisper very softly, 
“Royal! He is drinking the milk! Come in 
and watch him!” 

Tiptoeing, the old folks and Kent came into 
the room, but the prairie dog paid no attention 
to them. He was too busy drinking the milk 
from the tin cup. 

“Oh,” cried Mavis in dismay, “look! He is 
swelling up dreadfully. I am afraid he will be 
sick. He is drinking too much!” 

Not until the very last drop of milk had been 


66 The Little House on the Desert 

swallowed did the little rascal stop, and his sides 
were then puffed out like a toy balloon, as he 
turned and fairly waddled away from the empty 
cup. Then he found the cookie and sniffed at it, 
twitching his nose as a rabbit does. That the 
cookie was all right, he soon decided, for he sat 
up on his hind legs and took the cookie in his two 
little front paws, just as a squirrel would do. 

The family tried not to laugh as he turned the 
cookie around and around, as though he expected 
to find one side different from the other. At 
last, holding it firmly, he took a bite and decided 
that he liked it. So he kept on eating through to 
the very center. But as he reached the middle 
of it, the brittle cookie broke in two, and the 
prairie dog sat on his haunches, holding half of 
the remaining cookie in either paw. 

He looked from one paw to the other, and the 
folks heard him scolding softly, as though he 
thought the cookie were to blame. Then he 
took a bite from the piece in his left paw, and 
after that he ate a little from the other piece. 
First the right, then the left, he kept on eating 
until the last crumb had found its way down his 
throat. Not once did he make a mistake in his 
method of eating alternately from right to left. 

Then they saw him go to the corner of his box 


The Little House on the Desert 67 

and curl up in a little furry ball. His head 
was tucked against his stomach, his feet curled 
tightly on either side of his head, and no one could 
tell where his head or tail really belonged. He 
was just a little ball of soft brown fur. 

Kent leaned cautiously over the cage. Then 
he smiled up at Mavis. 

“Listen!” he held up his hand. “Can you hear 
him?” 

Mavis held her breath and leaned forward, but 
she shook her head. Then Kent gently pushed 
her chair so that she could lean over the cage. 

“Oh! He’s singing himself to sleep!” she 
whispered, as she heard the funny little purring 
that was something like the sound a cat makes 
when it is comfortable and a bit sleepy. 

“I guess it won’t fret any more about staying 
with us,” Grandmother Ruth now spoke. “I’m 
mighty glad we found out it likes milk and 
cookies, for it won’t starve, anyway.” 

“We’ve got to name it,” were Mavis’s next 
words. “I can’t go on calling it Prairie Dog.” 

“I knew that would be the next thing,” 
Grandma laughed, looking at Kent. “Mavis 
and Pa name all the chickens as fast as they 
come out of the shell. And it’s queer, but each 
chicken seems to know its own name.” 


68 The Little House on the Desert 

“Of course it does,” asserted Mavis. “Why 
shouldn’t it ? Dogs and cats and horses and birds 
know their names. Grandpa says so.” 

“Well, that settles it. Now what shall we 
call this chap?” asked Royal Kent. 

“Yappy,” Mavis answered at once. “Don’t 
you remember when the sentinel stands up on 
guard at Prairie Dog Town, he calls out, ‘Yip— 
yip—yip,’ and then before he ducks down, he 
changes his call to ‘Ya—a—ap’?” 

Kent nodded. “Hereafter his name shall be 
Yappy, and I feel pretty sure he is going to be an 
interesting little pet. After he knows us better, 
I shall make a very large box for him, so he will 
have plenty of room to run about and not re¬ 
member that he is our prisoner.” 

During the night, when Mavis woke, she lis¬ 
tened alertly for any sound from the prairie dog. 
But he was perfectly quiet until the faint rumble 
of an approaching train disturbed him. As it 
grew louder and louder, Mavis heard him stirring 
and bumping against the empty tin cup. Then 
Yappy began his warning call, just as though he 
were sitting very erect on the top of his home in 
Prairie Dog Town. 

Mavis felt so sorry for him just then that she 
wished she could get up from her bed and take 


69 


The Little House on the Desert 

him from his box, then carry him to the door 
so that he could run home. But she was not 
able to move unaided. 

The train rushed on its way, and as Mavis 
settled back upon her pillow, she heard the 
familiar whistle that carried its message to her. 
The lamp which was always lighted at night as a 
friendly signal sent out its rays in a golden path. 
And from her bed, which was placed so that she 
could see through the window. Mavis watched 
the tail light of the train bobbing and dancing 
across the prairie like a huge firefly. Then it 
vanished. 

The prairie dog became quiet once more. 
Mavis heard the funny little purr and smiled at 
her faithful friend, the lamp, as she said, “He’s 
singing himself to sleep now.” 

No one but Mavis knew how many times she 
and the lamp talked to each other during the 
long nights, and now the lamp winked at her, as 
though to say, “He did not forget his duty as a 
sentinel, even though he himself is a prisoner. 
Go to sleep, Mavis, for Yappy is on guard, and 
I, too, am keeping watch over you.” 

And Mavis’s eyelids drooped slowly, while the 
lamp blinked and winked steadily and flung its 
yellow rays across the sleeping desert. 


CHAPTER IX 


T HE next morning when Royal Kent came 
to visit his captive and bring fresh milk and 
cookies, Yappy squinted up at him with bright, 
questioning eyes. 

‘‘He does not seem to be afraid of us this 
morning,” Kent said to Mavis, as he cautiously 
lifted the trapdoor on top of the box and placed 
the cup of milk inside. 

Yappy hurried to drink and paid no attention 
to Kent’s hand, which still held the handle of the 
cup. When Kent let go the cup and softly 
touched the brown head, Yappy moved slightly 
and ruffled the fur along his backbone, then 
deciding that the hand would not grab or hurt 
him, the little creature again began to drink 
the milk. All the time the prairie dog was 
drinking, Royal Kent gently stroked the soft 
fur. He was as much pleased as Mavis was to 
see that the prairie dog did not seem to mind be¬ 
ing petted. 

“We are not going to have any trouble taming 

70 


The Little House on the Desert 71 

him,” asserted Kent, and Mavis, watching the 
cage, looked up wistfully. 

“Royal, do you think he will let me pet him 
sometime? I’d love to do it. I wouldn’t hold 
him tight enough to hurt him.” 

“Of course you shall pet him. Wait a few 
more days till he is more accustomed to us. He 
has teeth like a rat, you know, and if he were 
frightened he might make a nasty wound. 
After he is used to us and knows we will not hurt 
him, I feel pretty sure he will forget that he has 
any teeth, except when he wants to eat a cookie.” 

By this time Grandfather and Grandmother 
Ruth had come in to watch the little pet eat his 
breakfast. 

“It’s queer,” Grandfather Ruth said, looking 
at his wife, “we’ve lived near prairie dog towns 
lots of times, but I never saw any one have a 
prairie dog for a pet until Royal caught this one.” 

“How did you ever catch him?” asked the old 
lady. “You said you couldn’t catch one with 
the box trap, and the next thing I knew, you 
came home with Yappy.” 

Kent laughed like a boy. “When I saw that 
the little fellows were too smart to go into the 
box, I was ready to give up trying. You see, I 
did not want to hurt any of them, and at first I 


72 The Little House on the Desert 

could not think of any other way except to fill 
up several holes with earth and then drag out a 
barrel of water and pour it down the open hole 
nearest the closed ones. But their system of 
tunnels is so perfect that I was pretty sure the 
dog in that hole could find his way to the surface. 
I didn’t have enough water to flood the whole 
village, you see!” 

“But, Royal, how on earth did you catch 
him?” Mavis asked wonderingly. 

“Took a lazy man’s way. I made a slip noose 
of stout but soft twine and pretended I was a 
cowboy roping a steer. You know they make a 
large noose and swing it about their heads and 
then throw it, and when it settles around the 
horns or neck of a cow, the cowboy jerks the 
rope quickly and turns his pony to tighten the 
rope. And when the rope tightens suddenly it 
tangles the cow’s legs so it falls to the ground. 
But little bronco cow was down under the ground, 
you see, so I had to figure another way. 

“You remember,” he turned to Mavis, “how 
the sentinel ducked when I tried to get near 
him?” 

“Yes. You never got near one of them.” 

“Yappy was not on duty as sentinel the day 
I caught him. I placed the noose on the ground 


73 


The Little House on the Desert 

around his hole and then went a long way off and 
stretched on the sand, holding the other end of 
the cord in my hand. But on the very top of his 
home I had driven a stout stick. The noose lay 
around this stick. 

“Near the stick I had scattered cracked corn. 
Then I waited, as a boy fishing waits for a nibble 
at his bait. When Yappy first came up, I did 
not move. He tasted the corn and liked it. 
Then he found a bread crust I had put there. 
That suited him, too. He sat up on his hind 
legs and ate without paying any attention to 
the stick or cord. Then he carried the crust 
down into his home. But I felt sure he would 
come out for more food. And I was right. The 
minute his little head came out, level with, the 
ground, I gave a jerk of the cord and got him!” 

“Did he fight?” Grandfather demanded. 

“He certainly did, and I had to handle him 
carefully to avoid hurting him at the same time 
I kept him from hurting me. But I managed 
to get him into my hat and then I came home as 
fast as I could trot. I had been a whole week 
lying on the ground by that village, trying my 
cord trick first one place then another. I began 
to think that the little citizens had held a meet¬ 
ing in their town hall and warned everyone in the 


74 


The Little House on the Desert 


village to watch out for my cord and keep away 
from boxes.” 

“ Maybe Yappy was away from home on a 
visit,” suggested Mavis, “so he didn’t know 
about us.” 

“Well, here he is, anyway,” Kent laughed. 
“And now I am going to fix a better home for 
him, so he will be contented to stay with us. 
Someday I may be able to catch another prairie 
dog to keep him company.” 

For the next two days Mavis was so interested 
in the building of the new home for Yappy that 
she could hardly take time to eat her meals. 

Kent wheeled her outside, and began to build 
the big box. He was going to make it so that 
Mavis would be able to look into it from her 
room. As he hammered and sawed, he explained 
to her that the box would be four feet high, four 
feet wide, and four feet deep. Big enough for a 
little girl to get inside comfortably, if she did not 
stand up. 

“Buzz-buzz-zzzzzzz,” sang the saw. 

“Tap—tap—tap,” answered the hammer. 
But no one except Mavis and Royal Kent knew 
that the tools were saying, “Watch us make a 
house for Yappy. A nice, big, strong home, so 
that he will be just as happy in it as he was in his 



The Little House on the Desert 75 

dirt home in Prairie Dog Town. We must make 
it secure from rain, for prairie dogs do not like to 
be wet.” 

So the house was built. Three sides and the 
floor were of solid wood, but the fourth side, 
which faced Mavis’s window, was of wire netting, 
so that she could watch Yappy. The roof of the 
house was of boards, and made so carefully that 
no rain could possibly drip inside. In the center 
of the roof was a little trapdoor with hinges, 
which would allow food to be placed inside or 
removed. 

Then Kent carried a lot of sandy earth and 
piled it solidly inside the box halfway to the top. 

“He can dig a hole if he wants to do it,” cried 
Mavis. She understood why the dirt was piled 
so high. “ And he can make a tunnel, too. Oh, 
I know he will like his home now!” 


CHAPTER X 


T HE old folks were as much interested as was 
Mavis when Kent finally pronounced the 
new house ready for its tenant. Yappy did not 
try to dodge Kent’s hand when it was slipped 
into the small box. Instead of dodging, the 
little creature sniffed at it, as though expecting 
something good to eat. He did not resist when 
Kent caught and drew him gently from the box. 

Mavis leaned close to him, and Yappy’s bright 
eyes blinked at her. 

“Oh, I wish—I wish-” 

She did not finish, for Kent understood her 
thought and held the prairie dog so that her fin¬ 
gers could touch the brown, soft head. Grand¬ 
mother Ruth picked up a bit of cookie which 
she handed to Mavis. 

“See if he will take it from you.” 

Mavis held the tidbit toward Yappy and to 
her great delight his little nose began twitching, 
then he stretched his neck and took a cautious 
bite. As he ate it, his black eyes watched the 

76 


The Little House on the Desert 77 

little girl’s face. But she knew he was not afraid 
of her. 

Then Kent carried him to the big box and 
dropped him through the trapdoor at the top. 
Yappy scurried hastily around, examining his 
new home. He took a drink from the tin cup of 
milk, tasted a cookie, and nibbled at a bit of 
bread crust. Then he went back to the cookie 
and seized it with both front paws; sitting up 
on his hind legs he began nibbling toward the 
center of it. 

Yappy paid no attention to any of the four 
who were watching him, for he seemed to know 
that this was his own home, and again he felt 
that he was “monarch of all he surveyed.” 
For after all, what more could any king ask than 
a palace of his own? 

After again thoroughly inspecting the box, 
Yappy w^ent to the very center of it and began 
digging a hole in the dirt. Mavis watched him 
bank the loose earth in a perfect parapet around 
his home, as by degrees he disappeared beneath 
the surface. 

It took some time for him to finish up his 
work to his satisfaction, but after it was com¬ 
pleted he seemed to be perfectly happy in his new 
surroundings. He spent much of his time under- 


78 


The Little House on the Desert 


ground, but when Mavis or Kent called his name 
he would come out of the hole to see what they 
wanted. And it was not so very many days 
later that Kent carried him into the room where 
Mavis was sitting. The doors were carefully 
closed by Grandmother Ruth, and then Kent 
placed the prairie dog on the floor, while the 
family watched to see what he would do in a 
place that was new to him. 

Yappy first sat up very stiffly on his hind legs 
and took a quick look about him, as though on 
guard against any possible enemy. Deciding 
that nothing threatened, he dropped on all fours 
and ran very slowly here and there, examining 
the furniture as high as he could reach. Mavis, 
knowing his weakness for cookies, tossed a tiny 
piece to him, and Yappy devoured it greedily. 
Then she kept throwing other pieces nearer to her 
until at last he reached up and took a bite from 
the cookie she was holding down to him. 

It was a very nice cookie. At least Yappy 
seemed to think so, for with a hop and sudden 
scramble, he stuck his sharp little claws into 
Mavis’s skirt, and the next thing they all knew, 
Yappy was sitting up on her lap and eating bits 
of cookie from her fingers. 

From his place on her knee he took a good look 


79 


The Little House on the Desert 

about him. Then his eyes flashed angrily. He 
stood up very high and the hair on his back rose 
in a ridge. Yappy had caught sight of a strange 
prairie dog. He leaped to the floor at once and 
rushed here and there to see that he had not over¬ 
looked any cookie crumbs which the other prairie 
dog might find. 

He did not know that the family were all 
laughing because he had caught sight of himself 
in the mirror of a bureau. And finally Kent 
picked him up and placed him on the bureau. 
Yappy showed real temper at first when he saw 
his reflection, but gradually he crept up to the 
other prairie dog and touched it with his nose. 
Then he sat up and watched the stranger. But 
finally he seemed to make up his mind that the 
other dog would not, or could not, get out of his 
cage behind the glass, so Yappy turned away 
and jumped down to the floor. Never after that 
did Yappy pay the least attention to his own 
image in a looking glass. 

Then Kent took him back to his box and 
Yappy lost no time in crawling down into the 
hole, probably to see if any one had disturbed his 
home while he was away on a visit to Mavis. 

If Yappy was homesick or lonesome, he cer¬ 
tainly showed no signs of it, for he was always 


80 The Little House on the Desert 

busy about something and kept the mound about 
his door piled high and firm, ready for a storm or 
any invaders. 

After that first trip to the house, each day the 
prairie dog expected to visit Mavis’s room. 
Yappy was a real pig when it came to drinking 
milk. He simply loved milk. And as soon as a 
tin cup filled with fresh milk was placed where he 
could see it, he would hasten to it as fast as he 
could. Let his nose touch the liquid, he never 
stopped until the last drop had been gulped 
down. 

And as he drank, his little brown sides would 
swell bigger and bigger until it really seemed as 
though he would burst. 

When there was nothing left but an empty tin 
cup, Yappy would turn very, very slowly and 
waddle across the room to Mavis. 

Sometimes he had to make several attempts 
to climb up into her lap, but once there he would 
curl into a soft, brown little ball and sing him¬ 
self to sleep, while Mavis gently stroked her 
queer little pet. 


CHAPTER XI 


M ARY ANN has been setting on those eggs 
three days overtime,” announced Grand¬ 
mother Ruth at the breakfast table one morning. 

“Mrs. Johnson told me the eggs were all fresh 
and good setting eggs,” answered Royal Kent. 
“Maybe jarring over the road from town spoiled 
them for setting.” 

“I marked the calender and she ought to have 
come off her nest on the fourteenth of March.” 
Grandma was talking about the hen, though it 
did sound as though she was talking about old 
Mrs. Johnson, who had given the eggs to Royal 
Kent for Mavis. “Not one egg is even chipped 
yet.” The old lady looked around at them all as 
if one of the family were to blame. 

“Let’s see,” Grandfather joined the conversa¬ 
tion, “to-day is the seventeenth of March. St. 
Patrick’s Day, as sure as you live! Now if 
Mary Ann were a true Irish patriot, we might 
think she was waiting for her family to come out 
of their shells to-day.” 


81 


82 The Little House on the Desert 

“Mary Ann always worries me,” complained 
Grandma. “She is a temperamental hen. You 
never can tell what she will do next. Twice she 
has left a nest and let the eggs get cold, but this 
time I put a sack over the top of the barrel so she 
couldn’t desert her nest. But I suppose she will 
get ahead of me one way or the other, as usual.” 

“We might take a look at the eggs after 
breakfast,” suggested Kent. “Maybe some of 
them will show indications of hatching out.” 
So an hour later, Mary Ann, shrieking and 
pecking, was lifted out of the barrel by Royal 
Kent, as Grandmother Ruth collected the warm 
eggs and carried them carefully into the house. 
Mavis was waiting anxiously. These eggs had 
been sent to her by a dear old lady who lived in 
town, and she had told Kent that the eggs were of 
a very choice breed. So Mavis had been deeply 
interested in seeing the little chicks appear. 

But alas! whether Mary Ann had proved 
false to her maternal duties, whether she had re¬ 
belled at having alien eggs thrust upon her to 
hatch out instead of her own, or whether the 
fault was that of the eggs, not a sign of any break 
in the white shells could be found. 

“I am afraid they are all spoiled,” sighed the 
old lady. “I never should have given them to 


The Little House on the Desert 


83 


Mary Ann. She manages to get ahead of me 
somehow. I said I would never again let her 
set, but the way she goes around clucking and 
fussing, I just hadn’t the heart to keep her off a 
nest. I’ll never trust her again.” 

44 Maybe the shells are too thick,” suggested 
the old man. 44 We had that happen several 
times, Ma.” 

“I’ll chip a shell very carefully,” said Kent, 
picking up an egg. “By barely chipping a tiny 
hole we can tell whether the chicks are all right 
or not.” 

44 You can’t hurt ’em,” Grandmother nodded 
her head sagely, “ for it’s full time for them to be 
out and about.” 

Mavis watched anxiously while Kent broke a 
wee bit of the shell and carefully enlarged the 
opening. A little sharp beak was thrust into 
sight, and as the shell broke, the top of a wiggling 
head appeared. 

“Oh, it’s all right!” Mavis fairly squealed 
her delight. 

44 Quick!” cried the old lady. 44 Put ’em all 
back in the barrel, Royal, and catch Mary Ann. 
Don’t let the eggs get chilled now.” 

Such a scrambling followed! Mary Ann, 
furious at the indignities heaped upon her, re- 


84 The Little House on the Desert 

fused to be caught. She ducked here and there, 
stirring up all the other chickens until they were 
running around like lunatics, clacking and 
squawking, while Kent, Grandfather, and Grand¬ 
mother chased and stumbed, grabbed and lost. 

The only serene thing in the chickenyard was 
General Pershing. With true dignity he stood in 
a corner and surveyed the commotion. Then, 
having reasoned from effect to cause, Pershing 
ascribed the trouble to his hated foe—Happy 
Hooligan. 

Meantime, Hooligan, standing in dazed mysti¬ 
fication, but with no intention of joining the 
fray, did not see that Pershing was approaching 
him from the rear until the general landed upon 
him neck and crop. 

But Hooligan was not one to submit tamely 
to a thrashing on the very day of Ireland’s patron 
saint. So while the family pursued Mary Ann, 
Pershing and Hooligan fought unrestrained. 

Mary Ann, finally cornered, was thrust back 
into the barrel, but so lustily did she fight, that 
Grandma, in order to save the cracked egg from 
being smashed, carried it into the kitchen with 
her. 

There she wrapped it in an old shawl and 
placed it in the oven of the stove. There was no 


The Little House on the Desert 85 

fire, but the iron stove was still warm from the 
cooking of breakfast. The oven door was left 
open. 

“Mary Ann is blazing mad,” announced Kent 
as he entered the kitchen. “Here’s another egg 
I found already chipped, so I thought I had 
better not risk having her tramp on it.” 

“She’d kill all those chicks now, just to spite 
us,” the old lady spoke indignantly. “I never 
saw a hen like her!” 

So the second egg was deposited in the shawl 
with the first one. 

“Please,” Mavis spoke, “all of you be careful 
and don’t build a fire in the stove.” 

“Don’t worry,” Grandma Ruth smiled. “I 
have made up my mind that those two chickens 
are going to get a chance to grow up good and 
strong, just to spite Mary Ann for the way she 
has been acting.” 

A few hours later a yellow chick emerged from 
its shell and struggled weakly to its feet. In 
spite of its wobbling it tried to look pompous, and 
flopped embryonic wings to steady itself. Then 
it fell upon its beak and decided to remain there 
for the time being. 

“Its heart is courageous,” commented Grand¬ 
father, “but it certainly has cowardly legs.” 


86 


The Little House on the Desert 

“ Give it time,” advised the old lady. “ That’s 
as fine a chick as I have ever seen.” 

“Let’s call it Patrick,” suggested Mavis, who 
was never satisfied until she had found a name 
for every living thing she knew. 

“Fine!” they all agreed, and then Grandma 
turned quickly. 

While they had been admiring Patrick, the 
second egg had been hatched. The latest ar¬ 
rival was a mixture of colors, and Grandma 
brought it to Mavis so that she could take a peep 
at it. 

“What will you name this one?” 

“Why, Bridget, of course,” the little girl re¬ 
plied at once. 

So the two chickens were named, and though 
the rest of the chicks were hatched by Mary Ann 
and brought up carefully by her, she refused 
flatly to allow either Patrick or Bridget to join 
their brothers and sisters, or to nestle under her 
wings at night. 

In fact, she seemed to blame them for the in¬ 
sults that had been heaped upon her by Grandma, 
and each time Royal Kent slipped little Pat¬ 
rick or Bridget into the brood, Mary Ann de¬ 
tected the deception and drove them away. So 
at last Grandma concluded to bring the two 


The Little House on the Desert 87 

chicks up by hand and keep them out of reach of 
Mary Ann’s sharp beak and claws. 

Maybe it was because Patrick and Bridget had 
special tidbits from the table and did not have 
to run around and scratch for a living, but at any 
rate they soon were taller than any of their broth¬ 
ers or sisters, and were very strong for their age. 

And when they had reached the stage where 
their pin feathers had disappeared entirely, and 
their legs were long and their necks gawky, two 
very peculiar feathers appeared on Bridget’s tail 
and grew longer and longer. But even that 
did not prepare the family for the shock of seeing 
Bridget stretch her neck one day, flap her almost 
featherless wings, and utter a queer crow. 

There was not the shadow of a doubt that 
Bridget was a rooster. And Patrick was a hen! 

Grandmother decided that Bridget was old 
enough now to live in the chickenyard, and so 
the two chickens were placed among the others. 
Mary Ann paid no attention to either of them, 
but Patrick and Bridget clucked and scratched 
as happily as though their own mother had 
not repudiated them. 

Bridget advanced to the very center of the 
yard, looked about at the other chickens, then 
lifted the ragged wings and long, thin neck. 


88 


The Little House on the Desert 

“Who’s afraid of who?” Pershing started 
angrily as he heard the broken, hoarse crow. It 
was bad enough to have Happy Hooligan defy 
him, but a lady rooster named Bridget was much 
worse. She must be suppressed at once. Persh¬ 
ing started toward the long-legged fowl. 

But alas! Pershing did not know that Brid¬ 
get’s ancestors had been game chickens in Mex¬ 
ico, trained for generations to fight. Those long 
legs ended in large feet which were equipped 
with strong, curved spurs, pointing backward. 
So when the doughty general began hostilities, 
Bridget amazed him by jumping high into the 
air, and in this position gave his head sharp 
jabs with those cruel spurs. 

Pershing was a good scrapper; otherwise he 
would not have been worthy of his honored name. 
But he was heavily built, with a full chest and 
short legs. Bridget’s chest was thin, his body 
was light, the comb on his head was small, so 
he was able to fly up or duck swiftly, and as he 
flew up, each time he struck his foe with the long 
spurs. 

Yes, Bridget was a game rooster and worthy of 
his ancestors. And then, too, he had been born 
on St. Patrick’s Day. Poor Pershing soon real¬ 
ized that he had not the ghost of a chance in this 


The Little House on the Desert 89 

combat. Being a born strategist, Pershing with¬ 
drew before any one could gloat over his lost 
laurels. 

Bridget let him go. Then standing on tiptoes, 
with eyes glittering fiercely, Bridget flapped his 
wings and threw back his head. 

“Who’s afraid of who?” rang Bridget’s chal¬ 
lenge to the whole world. 

There was no reply. Then Patrick sidled up 
to Bridget’s side and the two of them strutted off 
together. Even if their mother had refused to 
acknowledge them, not one chicken in that barn¬ 
yard had the courage to challenge either of them 
after that fight. 

There had been an earnest discussion in the 
little house between the members of the family 
as to whether the names of Patrick and Bridget 
should not be changed about. But Mavis in¬ 
sisted that the names were all right and so the 
chickens remained as christened. 

But none of them were prepared for a second 
surprise a few days later. 

Mary Ann, Bridget, and Patrick were found 
amiably sharing the same dusthole. It was a 
dusthole Mary Ann had made for herself, alone, 
in a corner of the chickenyard, and never before 
had any other fowl dared approach it. Yet 


90 The Little House on the Desert 

there the old hen and the chickens she had re¬ 
fused to acknowledge were scratching and throw¬ 
ing dust over each other in the most friendly way. 

And still more astonishing! General Pershing, 
showing scars of his recent battle, was having a 
perfectly beautiful duet of crowing with Happy 
Hooligan! 

“It’s like the prophecy in the Bible,” said 
Grandmother Ruth. “‘The lion and the lamb 
shall lie down together.’ I never had any doubt 
about the lion and the lamb, but I certainly never 
hoped to see the day when General Pershing 
would turn pacifist and make friends with Happy 
Hooligan. It just shows that you never know 
what will happen next, with chickens or people! ’ 5 


CHAPTER XII 


T HE days passed quietly but pleasantly in 
the little house, and peace reigned in the 
chickenyard, much to Grandma Ruth’s de¬ 
light. 

Mavis was a very busy little girl, for apart 
from her knitting she now had Yappy and her 
two pet chickens, Patrick and Bridget. The 
two chickens, refusing to stay in the barnyard, 
were allowed to wander around outside the 
house. And besides all this and the never- 
omitted whistle of the passing trains, Mavis had 
another pleasure. 

Royal Kent would often stop his clicking type¬ 
writer and leaving his tent, come into the house 
to sit down beside her. And then he would tell 
her wonderful stories. 

That was Kent’s work—writing stories. But 
he did not tell any of his friends about the big 
story he was trying to write, nor how many 
times he had already written it, only to have it 
come back to him with a printed note saying 

91 


92 The Little House on the Desert 

that it did not quite suit the publisher to whom 
it had been sent. 

Up to the time when he went to live on the 
desert as the doctor had told him to do, Kent 
had never had a book of his accepted. But he 
believed that some day he might be successful in 
finding favor with a publisher. 

Since he had shared the life of the old folks 
and the little crippled girl, the book that had 
seemed so fine when he was writing it now 
seemed silly and dull. So Kent had torn it up 
and started another book that was entirely 
different from his first idea. 

He had mended the broken old wagon so that 
it was quite strong, and the double harness, which 
had once been very good, needed only sewing here 
and there to make it useful again. 

Mavis was greatly interested as she watched 
him working on the harness, for she had never 
seen any one sew as he did. First he took a 
sharply pointed awl and made a small hole in the 
leather. Then he threaded not one, but two 
needles, with stout thread, and waxed the 
thread. Each needle was thrust through the 
same hole at the same time, but from opposite 
sides of the leather, so the stitching was exactly 
the same on both sides. Thus the harness was 


93 


The Little House on the Desert 

mended. After that it was thoroughly rubbed 
with oil, to soften it and keep it from cracking. 

A few days later Kent hitched up his two 
horses to the wagon, and with a wave of his hat, 
the vehicle rattled away from the house for the 
first time since the old gray horse had died. 
That had been the year before Kent had come 
to live in the little home. So the mending of the 
wagon and harness and this trip to town were 
really quite exciting events. 

Mavis, at her window, kept waving and wav¬ 
ing, and Kent kept turning back to signal her 
with his big felt hat, until at last the child at 
the window could see nothing but a moving black 
object which soon vanished from her sight. 

The family knew that Kent could not get back 
before the evening of the fourth day, but even 
a few hours after he had left them they began 
to talk about his return. 

The coming of Royal Kent had meant a great 
deal to them all. Grandfather Ruth had a small 
pension each month, because he had been a 
soldier in the Civil War, and this money, to¬ 
gether with the money the Government paid 
them, as arranged by Mavis’s father before he 
had gone to France, gave them enough for abso¬ 
lute necessities. But there was never enough 


94 


The Little House on the Desert 


money ahead to buy a team and wagon, or to 
hire a man to help the old folks take care of their 
place. 

Their nearest neighbor lived thirty miles away, 
on what was called the “main road,” and since 
the Ruth home was on a little branch road where 
very few people ever passed, the neighbor had of¬ 
fered to bring what things the Ruth family might 
need from town, whenever he made a trip there 
for his own supplies. 

When Kent had understood all this, he had at 
once decided to mend the wagon and harness and 
use his own horses for a team. Both of them 
were gentle and had been broken to harness as 
well as saddle. 

There was another way in which Royal Kent 
was helping them all. The extra money that, 
in spite of the old folks’ protests, he insisted upon 
paying for his meals, made a nice little nest egg 
which Grandpa and Grandma Ruth were care¬ 
fully saving up for Mavis. 

The first time Kent had handed the money to 
the old lady, she had looked up with tear-bright 
eyes and said, “I’m going to put every cent of it 
aside, Royal. Somehow, I believe that the dear 
Lord will answer my prayers and make Mavis 
well, so that she can run and play like other 


v 


The Little House on the Desert 


95 


children. Pa and I have been skimping all we 
could, so that we might take her to a doctor who 
would help her, even if we didn’t have very 
much money to pay him.” 

“I wish I had a million dollars!” exclaimed 
the young man. “I’d take her to the best sur¬ 
geons in the world. But maybe when my book 
is finished, I can sell it, and get enough money 
for her and for many other things.” 

“If Mavis were well,” Grandma Ruth said 
earnestly, “Pa and I would not want anything 
else. We are happy here and the Lord has been 
very good to us all.” 

Kent turned away from her and went back to 
his tent. He put a fresh sheet of paper in his 
typewriter and began hitting the keys as fast as 
he could. 

So the days had turned into weeks, and it was 
midsummer when the mended wagon, with Kent 
in the driver’s seat, had rattled across the long, 
sandy stretch of country to the nearest town. 

And on the evening of the fourth day Mavis 
was the first one to catch sight of a tiny black 
spot in the distance. Grandfather Ruth got his 
old spyglass, and after squinting through it with 
one eye, he announced that it was Royal Kent 
coming home. 




96 The Little House on the Desert 

Then as the wagon drew near enough to be 
seen plainly, Kent took off his big hat and waved 
it above his head. Mavis's fluttering handker¬ 
chief answered him, and even Grandpa got so 
excited that he stood at the gate, waving his hat. 
But it took Grandma Ruth to outdo them all, for 
she jerked off her kitchen apron and held it up so 
that it fluttered in the breeze like a checkered flag. 

It was a happy homecoming for all. Kent 
guided the team to the front gate, and the rattle 
of wheels mingled with the clanking of the chain 
traces when the wagon finally halted and Kent 
jumped down. 

“Here I am again! My! It is good to be 
home. We're going to have a midsummer 
Christmas party after supper.” 

“How far away could you see me waving, 
Royal?” was the first question Mavis asked him. 

“I was a long way down the railroad track 
and could see you all that distance. So you may 
be sure that the train people have been able to 
see your signal.” 

“Oh, I am so glad. Then they must under¬ 
stand it!” 

“Why, of course they do,” replied her friend. 

“Supper is on the table,” said Grandma, ap¬ 
pearing at the porch door. 


The Little House on the Desert 97 

“I’m so hungry I could eat a whole house—if 
it were a gingerbread house, like the one the old 
witch lived in,” laughed Kent as he wheeled 
Mavis toward the dining room. 

She nodded brightly over her shoulder. The 
story of Hansel and Gretel and the terrible old 
witch was one of the many stories Royal Kent 
had told her. He also knew interesting tales of 
adventures and fairies and animals. 

It was a merry supper and they all laughed 
and talked a great deal. After it was over Kent 
helped wash the dishes. That finished, they 
waited the unpacking of what he called their 
“summer Christmas presents.” 

Comfy slippers for Grandma, a new pipe for 
Grandpa, and then, Mavis gasped with de¬ 
lighted surprise—a surprise too great for any 
words—for Kent carefully unwrapped folds of 
soft white tissue paper and laid in her arms a 
wonderful doll with real curly hair and tiny 
teeth showing between the pink parted lips and 
eyes that actually closed in sleep! 

Mavis sat in silent ecstasy, holding the'pre¬ 
cious doll closely against her breast. Her eyes 
were shining with happiness. It was her own! 
The most beautiful, most wonderful doll in the 
whole world! 


CHAPTER XIII 


T HE soil around here is good,” said Kent 
very positively as he and old man Ruth 
were weeding the little flower garden they had 
made outside Mavis’s window. “Mavis is right. 
There is a bud!” 

It was a garden of old-fashioned flowers: 
four-o’clocks, cosmos, stiff, tall hollyhocks—all 
of which had thrived surprisingly. But the 
great achievement was a gay red geranium bush, 
and in a shady corner a red rambler rose proved 
that it, too, would defy what was called the 
desert, provided there was water enough to 
moisten its slender roots. 

Mavis, seated in her wheel chair with Yappy 
in her lap and her precious doll sitting primly 
erect beside her, had just made the announce¬ 
ment that there was a little green bud on the 
rosebush, and the rest of the family had been 
as delighted as she was. 

“Now that the windmill is all right,” con¬ 
tinued the young man, “we could dig an earth 
reservoir and let the surplus water collect in it. 

98 


99 


The Little House on the Desert 

Then by making small ditches, like a checker¬ 
board over the land, we could irrigate the soil 
and cultivate this place/’ 

Kent stood up, spade in hand, and looked over 
the land around the house. The hundred and 
sixty acres of land owned by the old couple 
had formerly belonged to the United States 
Government. Grandpa Ruth had acquired title 
to his quarter-section under what was known as 
the Homestead Law. 

This law was made to enable an American 
citizen to acquire land for his own if he is willing 
to settle on it and improve the property. Every 
applicant must first fill out a regular printed 
form describing the land he wants to own. Then 
he must place improvements upon the land de¬ 
scribed, build a substantial house and live in it 
continuously for five years, except for the time 
he is allowed to be absent twice each year for 
a limited period. This is the way to make a 
“Homestead Entry.” 

The improvements required by the Govern¬ 
ment must be fully completed before the end of 
five years and proof furnished that the man who 
asked for the land has lived upon it continuously 
during that time, except for the leaves of absence 
allowed. 


100 


The Little House on the Desert 


Old man Ruth had complied with all the Fed¬ 
eral Land Laws and the deed to his homestead 
had been given to him many, many years before 
Mavis was born. 

The old couple had moved to the lonely desert 
country because their orphan grandson had a very 
bad cough, and like Kent’s doctors, the doctor 
who had attended the child told the family to 
take him to the high, dry air of Arizona. 

Here the little family had lived happily, and 
when the boy had grown to healthy manhood, 
he had brought a wife to live with the old 
folks in the little home. There Mavis had been 
born. 

William McKinley Ruth, Mavis’s father, had 
kept the place in fine shape. He and his old 
grandfather had planted apple trees in the 
fenced land, and together they had planned 
many more improvements. 

Then had come the Great War in Europe, and 
William McKinley Ruth, looking very big and 
handsome in his uniform, had said good-bye to 
his grandparents and kissed his wife and little 
daughter for the last time. None of them shed 
a tear. They knew he was doing his duty, and 
their own duty was to help him by smiling good¬ 
bye. 


101 


The Little House on the Desert 

As the days, weeks, and months had passed 
since that day, the old grandfather had not been 
able to keep things the same on the little ranch, 
for he had grown very feeble. So the trees had 
withered in the hot, dry soil when the windmill 
had broken down; and as there was not enough 
money to buy a new mill, and they were not able 
to fix the old one, Grandpa had drawn water 
from the well by means of a bucket and hand 
windlass. It was slow, hard work for the old 
folks, and they only drew up what water was 
actually needed for themselves, the chickens, 
cow, and calf, and to water the few vines which 
shaded the porch. 

Kent’s coming had changed all that. It was 
not long after he became a member of the house¬ 
hold that he busied himself with the windmill 
and restored it to its former usefulness. There 
was no longer need for any one to lift heavy 
buckets of water from the deep well. 

“ We ought to be able to raise something prof¬ 
itable here,” Kent frowned thoughtfully, while 
he knelt and with a small trowel loosened the 
soil around a young plant. “I am going to ex¬ 
periment.” 

“We tried apples and peaches,” answered 
Grandfather Ruth, “but you see they just 


102 The Little House on the Desert 

shriveled up and died, all except that one apple 
tree. And it never had a single apple on it.” 

“I know,” Kent nodded, “but I won’t plant 
apples or peaches. I have been studying pam¬ 
phlets from the Agricultural Department at 
Washington, and have written them for infor¬ 
mation as to what trees would be best adapted 
to this soil and climate. And they are going to 
send us the right things to plant here.” 

“Well! For goodness’ sakes!” ejaculated 
Grandmother. “How did you ever hear of such 
a thing?” 

“I read about it long before I came here,” 
laughed the young man. “Now the first thing 
we have to do is dig an earth reservoir and let 
the extra water pumped by the windmill flow 
into a large pond. Luckily there is not often a 
day here when the wind does not blow sufficiently 
to keep the pond filled. Then from the pond 
we shall make small trenches across the land, like 
a checkerboard, and by closing or opening each 
trench, every inch of the soil can be moistened, 
or irrigated, as they call it. You see, if the land 
were wet simply in patches here and there, the 
dry soil would absorb all the moisture, and the 
benefit would be lost.” 

“It’s the way they do in Mexico,” said Grand- 


The Little House on the Desert 103 

father, “but not from windmills. They just dig 
ditches leading from the rivers.” 

“It’s the same system that has been used the 
wide world over since the very first days of his¬ 
tory,” replied Kent. “Without the overflow 
from the River Nile, Egypt would be a barren 
desert. There is no reason why our American 
desert country should not also be made produc¬ 
tive. It’s not my own idea. Already our 
Government has built the big Roosevelt Dam 
and that tremendous irrigation system at Yuma. 
Both of these places were formerly Arizona 
desert sections, but now they grow dates, figs, 
olives, and other rare products that cannot be 
raised in many naturally fertile parts of our 
country.” 

And so they worked at the big reservoir and 
dug the little ditches across the land that be¬ 
longed to the old couple, and each evening Kent 
read to them from the pamphlets which told how 
to plant and cultivate various products which 
would live under certain conditions. 

Then came the great day of days when Kent 
returned from a trip to town with his wagon full 
of clumsy bundles. When opened they dis¬ 
closed young trees, carefully packed, and with 
their long roots imbedded in damp clumps of 


104 The Little House on the Desert 

soils, which protected the slender filaments from 
injury while being shipped from Washington. 

Grandma Ruth adjusted her glasses, and, as 
Kent and the old man unwrapped the trees, she 
read from the little wooden tags which were 
attached by wire to the stalk of each tree. Dates, 
white figs, black figs, grapefruit, oranges, lemons, 
avocado pear trees, and olives. 

“If these will grow for the Government,” 
said Grandpa very decidedly, “I can’t see any 
reason why they shouldn’t grow here for us.” 

“Well,” commented Royal Kent, “the Rec¬ 
lamation Service put through that big Yuma 
Dam, and miles and miles of land all the way 
to the Mexican Border are now covered with 
fruit or melons which are shipped all over the 
country. The crop reaches the market earlier 
in the year than any other similar produce 
raised even in Southern California. Knowing 
this gave me my idea for trying our own little 
Reclamation Service here.” 

Day by day the work went on. It was slow 
and hard work, but the trees responded to the 
care of the three farmers, while Mavis, sitting 
in her wheel chair or in the little wagon, was able 
to see it all. She was called the Ranch Boss. 
The place Kent called their Experimental Farm, 


105 


The Little House on the Desert 

and he kept a careful record day by day as to 
how the work was succeeding. 

The old Perkins windmill, adjusted and oiled, 
flopped its big wooden wings like an awkward 
crane. It creaked and it squeaked and its 
plunger went down into the shaft with a gurgling 
“kerchunk 55 like a laugh. Then it rose again with 
a “clank, 55 and a stream of water spurted into a 
trough, and from that trough the silvery over¬ 
flow splashed into a wooden frame like a long 
narrow box without any top. From this box¬ 
like trough the reservoir was filled. 

And each evening at sunset, the two men, 
armed with hoes, opened or closed up each of the 
little ditches, so that the water could percolate 
into the soil and moisten the roots of every tree. 
Then, here and there on the trees, little bumps 
began to swell and finally burst open where the 
green tips of new leaves reached out to the air 
and sunlight. 

“Some day, 55 Kent remarked at the supper 
table one evening, “this place that is now called 
a desert will be covered with prosperous farms. 
Not to grow wheat, barley, corn, or things that 
are raised under ordinary conditions, but to 
produce fruits that live in the tropics and which 
cannot stand the cold weather. 55 ^ 


106 The Little House on the Desert 

“I guess that’s what the Bible means,” sug¬ 
gested Grandma. “‘The desert shall blossom 
like the rose.’” 

With all the new interests in her life, Mavis did 
not forget her friendly trainmen. Yappy had 
become accustomed to the rumble of the trains 
and the shrill screams of the whistles. He was 
very brave when he happened to be in the room 
with Mavis, and would climb on her knee, stand¬ 
ing fiercely erect while he watched the big, snort¬ 
ing train rush nearer and nearer like a huge black 
snake. But when he was in his box outside, he 
wasted not a second, did not utter a yap, but 
scooted down his hole when he felt the first tre¬ 
mor from the distant train. 

“I have made a lovely cake,” smiled the old 
lady one afternoon as she came into the front 
room where the family were sitting together. 
“Here’s a try cake.” 

Each of them tasted the little flat cake and pro¬ 
nounced it fine, and Grandma Ruth sat down and 
picked up a darning ball and one of Grandpa’s 
socks. * 

“It’s in the oven cooling,” she said. 

“Why did you leave it in the oven?” Kent 
asked, looking up from a game of checkers he 
and Mavis were playing. 


The Little House on the Desert 107 

“ Because if you let it cool too suddenly, it is 
more than likely to fail in the middle,” explained 
Grandma. “I just let the fire die and leave the 
oven door open wide, and that sets the cake 
nicely.” 

For almost an hour they chatted together, and 
then the old lady arose, saying, “That cake will 
be ready to take from the pan now, and ice.” 

She trotted into the kitchen and Kent gathered 
up the checkers to place them on the board for 
another game. Mavis had been the winner of 
the last game, and Kent had won the first. So 
it was necessary to play a third game to decide 
who had won the set. But the checkers rolled to 
the floor as a shrill shriek came from the kitchen. 
Something had happened to Grandma Ruth. 

“Oh—oh—oh!” they heard her cry. 

Kent ran as fast as he could toward the kitchen. 
Grandfather hobbled after him, while Mavis, 
unable to move, sat in her chair, wringing her 
hands and crying out, “Oh, what is the matter? 
Please, please tell me what is the matter?” 

Then Kent came back and Mavis, looking up 
in fright, saw that his brown eyes were dancing 
with laughter and a broad grin was on his face. 

“It’s the cake!” he said. “I guess there are 
not many crumbs left for us.” 


108 The Little House on the Desert 

Grandma appeared in the doorway. Her face 
was flushed. “ Well, that settles it! ” she snapped 
angrily. 

‘ ‘ What is the matter. Granny ? 5 ’ Mavis looked 
from one to the other, for Grandpa had reentered 
the room, sat down in his pet chair, and was 
rocking back and forth, chuckling. 

“Patrick and Bridget got into the kitchen and 
found the stove door open,” he laughed. “So 
they hopped in and got busy on that cake.” 

“They had a hole in the center as big as a 
saucer when I caught them,” Grandma inter¬ 
rupted him. “There they were dancing around 
that cakepan, hopping from foot to foot because 
the oven was too warm to be comfortable 
when they stood still.” 

“It’s the first time I ever heard of any chicken 
getting into a hot oven of its own free will,” 
laughed Kent. 

“Well”—Grandma’s voice was tart—“I hope 
their toes will hurt enough to keep them away 
from my oven after this.” 

Then she laughed in spite of her irritation at 
losing the cake. “Never mind, I’ll bake an¬ 
other one to-morrow. But Mavis and I will stay 
in the kitchen until we know the cake is safe 
from those two pesky Irish chickens!” 


CHAPTER XIV 


H ERE are some new seeds to try in your gar¬ 
den, Mavis.” Kent held a small package 
in his hand. “Em going to take you outside so 
you can help me plant them.” 

Through the front room he pushed her chair, 
and then slid it gently down the runway, as he 
called the wide board he had placed at one end 
of the porch steps for the chair to be wheeled up 
or down without any trouble or jolting. 

When they reached the garden just outside her 
window, Mavis opened the packets of seed while 
her friend made the ground ready. It was a very 
busy morning for the two of them, and after the 
work had been finished Kent took her back to 
the shady porch. Grandma brought out glasses 
containing bits of lemon and sugar, and then 
Kent went to the olla and filled the glasses with 
cold water. 

The olla was a huge earthen jar swinging from 
the roof of the porch in a harness made of ropes. 
The entire surface, except the mouth of the jar, 

109 


y 


110 The Little House on the Desert 

was covered by many folds of sacking, and this 
sacking was kept wet by the evaporation of the 
water inside the olla. For people who lived far 
away from any ice, here was water almost as cold 
as ice water, even during the hottest day. 

As they sat drinking their lemonade, Kent told 
of their morning’s work. Then he turned sud¬ 
denly to Mavis and asked, “Did I ever tell you 
about my fern seed?” 

Mavis shook her head, and begged, “Please 
tell me, Royal.” 

No one ever dreamed how eager she was to 
know what other boys and girls did or how they 
played and lived. For even if she had not been 
crippled, Mavis would not have known anything 
about children, because in all her little life she 
had never seen another child. 

Often she had wished that somebody with a lit¬ 
tle girl or boy might drive up to the gate one day, 
so she could watch the child, hear it talk, and talk 
to it herself. Her great-grandparents had told 
her of their own childhood, and she had tried to 
picture them as children. Rut she was not able 
to think of either of them except as she saw them 
now. 

With Royal Kent it was different. He 
laughed and talked and played with her the way 


Ill 


The Little House on the Desert 

she thought big boys would do. And when he 
told her of how he had sneaked away from school 
to go swimming, and his own father, driving 
along the road, had seen him and stolen all his 
clothes, Mavis had laughed gaily. He had told 
her of his pet dog, Blunderbuss, and how the two 
of them were always getting into trouble to¬ 
gether. So now she waited in happy expectancy 
for the story of the fern seed. 

“Did you have a garden when you were little?” 
she asked. 

“No,” Kent replied very soberly, “my fern 
seeds were not intended for any garden. But 
here is the true story, just as it really happened 
when I was ten years old. 

“I had been reading a story of a very bad 
little boy who made trouble for all his relatives 
and friends. When Christmas approached, Fred 
made a long list of things he expected to receive 
as gifts. He wrote them very plainly on many 
slips of paper and placed these papers under the 
plates of all his grown-up relatives, so they would 
be sure to buy him the things he wanted. He 
thought that was a fine idea. 

“So he went to bed early Christmas Eve, but 
he did not intend to go to sleep. He was going 
to stay awake and when Santa Claus came down 


112 The Little House on the Desert 

the chimney with all the toys, Fred intended to 
jump on him and grab his pack and keep all the 
toys for himself. 

“But in spite of his intention, Fred went sound 
asleep. When he awoke it was very late, but 
the moonlight shone faintly through the window. 
Then Fred heard a funny squeak like that of a 
mouse, and on the foot of his bed he saw a tiny 
figure. He rubbed his eyes in amazement, but 
there it was! An elf with little wood-brown 
clothes and a peaked cap; on its tiny feet were 
sharp-pointed, long shoes. 

“ 4 Hello, Fred! Do you want a nice Christmas 
gift?’ the elf asked in a funny little voice. 

“And when Fred could get his breath, he 
answered very politely, 6 Yes, sir, please.’ 

“Fred bragged that he never said ‘please’ to 
any one, but he was too afraid to speak any other 
way to an elf. 

“The wee thing skipped lightly to the floor, 
and as Fred leaned over the side of the bed to 
watch, the elf poured some tiny seed into Fred’s 
best shoes, which were ready for him to wear on 
Christmas morning. 

“‘Now,’ the elf spoke briskly, ‘this is a won¬ 
derful present. Fern seed from the Garden of 
the Elves. They will make you invisible. Not 


The Little House on the Desert 113 

very many human beings have that privilege. 
You can go around among people, hear them 
talking, and yet they will not know you are near 
them. Good-night, Fred. A jolly Christmas to 
you!’ 

“The little chap vanished. Fred got up and 
examined his shoes, and sure enough there were 
tiny seeds sprinkled inside. He went back to bed 
and lay awake planning the tricks he would play 
on his family the next day, when nobody could 
see him. 

“He could pinch the cat’s tail, and pull his 
sister’s curls, and steal the glasses from his 
grandmother’s nose, and go into the pantry and 
eat all the mince pies that were ready for dinner. 

“Then he fell asleep again. But the next day 
as he walked about without any one seeing him, 
he heard them all saying what a bad boy he was 
and how they had decided not to get anything 
for his Christmas gift except a stout switch. 
His father said that unless Fred behaved better 
the next year he was to be sent off to a boarding 
school where bad boys were trained to behave 
properly. 

“Fred rushed to his room and jerked off the 
shoes and threw the fern seed away, and then he 
ran downstairs and told everyone that he was 


114 The Little Mouse on the Desert 

sorry for his acts, and that he was going to be a 
good boy from that time on. And he kept his 
word. But never again did he wish to be in¬ 
visible. He did not know that the little elf had 
given him the seed in order to teach him to be¬ 
have. 

“Well,” Kent said with a twinkle in his eyes, 
“after I had read this story I thought what a 
fine thing it would be if I were invisible. Then 
I remembered that in my grandmother’s parlor 
was a marble-topped table, and on that table 
was a large fern. So I hurried to examine it. 

“My grandmother was watering it and clip¬ 
ping off dead leaves. She was very proud of 
the fern. I noticed a lot of little brown bumps 
on the under sides of the leaves, and my grand¬ 
mother told me they were seeds. 

“Then I waited until she had left the room, 
and with my fingernail I carefully scraped the 
seeds into my other hand. I did not stop until 
I had collected all the seeds from the entire 
plant. It did not take many minutes for me to 
race to my room, take off my shoes, slip the seed 
into them and relace my shoes. Then I started 
on my adventure of being invisible. 

“First I walked slowly downstairs into the 
sitting room where my grandmother was sewing. 


The Little House on the Desert 115 

I did not speak a word, but stood there waiting 
to see what she would do. She looked up but 
did not say anything. 

“Then I knew that she could not see me. 

“Satisfied that I was invisible, I went outside 
and across the road. Job Harris lived there. I 
didn’t like Job and he didn’t like me. We had 
had several fights and Job had always been the 
winner. Now was my chance to get square with 
him. 

“Job was in his backyard. I heard him whis¬ 
tling there, so I went around. 

“‘Hello, Job!’ I said, expecting to see him 
jump. But he just turned toward me and didn’t 
speak. 

“Naturally he wouldn’t speak to me when 
he was not able to see me. More proof that the 
fern seed had made me invisible. So, feeling 
very safe, I picked up a clump of dirt and threw 
it at him. It hit his ear. 

“And the minute it hit him, Job turned and 
jumped at me and down I went, flat on my back, 
with Job sitting stride my chest, his hands grip¬ 
ping my hair and lifting my head up and down, 
bumping it against the ground. 

“‘Holler “’miff,”’ he kept saying. ‘You holler 
“’miff”!’ 


116 The Little House on the Desert 

“I was so mad that I wouldn’t ‘holler,’ and 
though it was a fierce fight it was a short one, for 
Job’s mother and my mother came running to 
separate us. 

“They hauled us apart, and as I stood up my 
mother cried out, ‘Royal Kent, you are a perfect 
sight! Go home at once and get into the bath¬ 
tub.’ 

“Then I spoke up, ‘You can’t tell whether I 
am a sight or not, because you can’t see me!’ 

“Everyone, even Job, laughed at that. But I 
kept on insisting that I was invisible, until my 
mother grew alarmed and, holding me by the arm, 
led me home. There she made me lie down on 
the bed while she put cold cloths on my head. 
Finally, as I kept on saying over and over that 
I was invisible, she sent for the family doctor. 
He insisted on looking at my tongue, though I 
told him there was no use in my sticking it out 
when he could not see it. For reply he held my 
nose and made me swallow some vile-tasting 
medicine. 

“I made up my mind very quickly that 
whether any one else were able to see me or not, 
I certainly was visible to that doctor. So I told 
him and Mother about the fern seed. 

“My troubles were not yet over. The fern 


117 


The Little House on the Desert 

from which I had scraped the seed withered up 
and died, and I had to take the money from 
my bank to buy another fern for Grandmother. 
That used all the money I had saved toward 
buying a new coaster sled. But Mother said it 
would teach me to respect the property of other 
people. And it did,” Kent added with a laugh. 

“ Well, the worst was yet to come. When the 
next Christmas arrived, Job Harris sent me a 
fern and so did lots of other folks, and for a long 
time after that, if I knew I had to pass a flower 
store I would walk any distance to avoid it, for 
fear I might see a fern in the window. Even to 
this day I never see a fern without recalling the 
time when I thought I was invisible.” 


CHAPTER XV 

R OYAL, Yappy won’t come out of his hole,” 
Mavis said to Kent as he was passing to¬ 
ward the house from the windmill. “He hasn’t 
come up to-day, even when I kept calling to him. 
Maybe he will come for you.” 

“Yappy, Yappy!” He leaned over the big 
cage and waited as anxiously as the little girl. 
But no prairie dog answered or appeared. 

Kent shook the box gently and called again. 
“Oh, do you think he is sick—or dead?” 
Mavis tried not to cry, but her voice trembled. 

“We shall find out pretty soon,” he answered. 
“If he is sick we may be able to doctor him and 
make him well.” 

“And if he is dead,” she could not keep the 
tears from her eyes, “I’d rather know it. It 
wouldn’t be so hard as to keep watching for 
him all the time.” 

Kent went to the little shed in which he kept 
tools, and came back with a hatchet and chisel. 
The old folks followed him and their eyes were 
118 


The Little House on the Desert 119 

&s anxious as the blue ones that looked through 
the window. 

Yappy had grown to be such a comical little 
pet and so friendly with them all, that they knew 
how they would miss him if he were 8 dead 3 ; but 
his loss would mean much more to the little 
crippled girl, who had so few pleasures in her 
life. 

Inch by inch Kent pried the wire netting from 
the front of the box, so that it lay upon the 
ground. Then he knelt and cautiously removed 
the earth with his hands. Still there was no 
sign of Yappy. Mavis was sure that her funny 
little pet was dead, and Kent thought so, too. 
Grandpa and Grandma Ruth looked soberly at 
each other. 

Little by little Kent kept removing the dirt, 
and as he did so, he would stop once in a while to 
examine something he found in the soil. A bit 
of biscuit was the first thing. Evidently Yappy 
had stored it away very carefully. After that 
came a dirty lump of sugar, half a cookie, and 
then—one after the other—Kent unearthed 
three tin cups. 

“ Good gracious! ” exclaimed Grandma, “ I have 
been trying to find those cups for weeks! I 
looked in his box for them.” 


120 The Little House on the Desert 

“Well, Yappy must have buried each one as 
soon as he finished drinking the milk,” replied 
Kent. “I looked for them, too, but thought you 
or Grandpa had taken the cups out of the box. 
So I did not speak about them.” 

They laughed sadly at the way little Yappy 
had worked to make his home the way he wanted 
it to be, even to hiding the tin cups so they could 
not be taken away from him. 

Then Kent reached the bottom of the soil. 
There was no sign of the prairie dog, dead or 
alive. 

“Well, he must have escaped and gone back 
to his village,” suggested Kent. 

“Maybe he was lonesome with us,” said Mavis 
from her window, and they saw that she was 
smiling, though her cheeks were wet with recent 
tears. “I would lots rather have him go back 
home if he wanted to, and I am glad that he is 
not dead, after all.” 

Mavis did not say how lonesome she would be 
without the pet she loved so dearly, for hers was 
one of the rare souls that did not count her own 
happiness when a sacrifice on her part would 
bring greater joy to those whom she loved. 

“Look!” Kent leaned down and poked his 
fingers into a small hole through the wooden 


The Little House on the Desert 121 

bottom of the box. “Here is the way he es¬ 
caped. Smart little rascal, pretending he was 
perfectly satisfied in his home and all the while 
he was slyly making a tunnel through the floor 
and into the ground. He knew enough not to 
try gnawing a hole in the box where we could 
catch him working.” 

There was no doubt that the mystery had 
been solved, and Kent turned to Mavis, saying, 
64 Never mind. I will catch another prairie dog 
for you, and I will cut open coal-oil cans and 
nail them all over the bottom and sides of the 
box. No prairie dog can work its way through 
tin.” 

Mavis shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the 
same as Yappy, and I couldn’t love any other 
prairie dog the way I loved him.” 

Kent picked up his tools and turned away. 
Then suddenly he burst out laughing. 

“Look! Yappy has been watching us all the 
time! What do you think of that?” 

And sure enough, only a few feet away sat 
Mr. Yappy, wdth hair ridged stiffly along his back 
and his eyes blinking angrily as he looked from 
the people to his badly damaged home. Then 
he crawled gingerly over the ware screening into 
the box and sniffed around different places. He 


122 The Little House on the Desert 

was looking for his dirty lump of sugar, the half 
cookie, and the biscuit. 

Kent tossed them to him, and he seized each 
in turn and carried it to the farther corner of the 
box. Then he sat up as though defying the 
whole world to take his treasures away from him. 

“Well,” announced Kent after their excite¬ 
ment had subsided, “as long as he did not run 
away when he had the chance, I don’t believe 
that he wants to desert us. We might as well 
put the dirt back and tack up the netting. We’ll 
leave the tunnel as it is, so he can go in and out 
his home whenever it suits him. That is evi¬ 
dently the reason he made the tunnel.” 

Kent went inside and brought Mavis out, so 
she could sit and watch Yappy rearrange his 
home. 

The prairie dog climbed up on her knee, keep¬ 
ing close watch over Kent’s work while the earth 
was being replaced before the wire screen was 
tacked up. Once in a while Yappy would sit up 
and scold angrily, as though he could not forgive 
them for the damage to his home. 

Suddenly he jumped down and squeezed past 
Kent’s hand. He reached one of the tin cups 
and seized the rim of it between his little teeth s 
Then Yappy’s troubles began in real earnest, 


The Little House on the Desert 123 

He tried to carry the cup back into his house. 
It would seem a very easy matter, but as the cup 
was half as large as he was, and he held the lower 
part of the rim between his little teeth, the hollow 
part of the cup covered his head and part of his 
back, so he could not see where he was going. 
Consequently, he bumped against the box. He 
dropped the cup and gave it a hard slap with his 
little paw, chattering angrily all the time. Then 
he tried it again, but the cup did not behave any 
better than the first time. 

Yappy let go of it and sat down beside it, as 
though he were trying to figure out a way to fool 
the cup. He walked around it several times, in¬ 
specting it carefully. Finally he decided that 
he had discovered a good scheme. 

Instead of taking hold of the rim nearest 
him, Yappy leaned quickly across the cup and 
grabbed the opposite edge with his teeth. Then 
he started once more toward the box. 

He was able to see where he was going this 
time, but alas! he could not take one step without 
walking inside the hollow part of the cup which 
now dangled below his jaws. 

He tried and he tried, and each failure made 
him more angry, until at last he sat on his 
haunches and struck the cup so violently that it 


124 The Little House on the Desert 

spun like a top. Then he kept after it, hitting 
and chattering furiously all the time, while 
Mavis, Kent, and the old folks laughed until the 
tears were rolling down their cheeks. 

It was growing dark. So Kent picked Yappy 
up in his hand and deposited him in the box, 
and each of the three precious cups was placed 
beside the prairie dog, who lost no time in 
examining them, as though to make sure that 
Kent had not stolen one. Then, without a 
moment’s loss of time, Yappy began digging in 
the earth in the very center of the box. And 
they all knew that he was going to see whether 
Kent had spoiled the tunnel that led from the box 
to some mysterious place outside. 

But none of them worried about it. They all 
knew now that Yappy had no intention of de¬ 
serting his friends or of giving up his home with 
the three beloved tin cups. 


CHAPTER XVI 


M AVIS was sitting in her chair which Kent 
had wheeled out to the chickenyard, so 
that she might help feed the chickens. Patrick 
and Bridget roosted at once on the arms of her 
chair and scornfully surveyed the other fowls, 
for they themselves had hastily gobbled all the 
grain they wanted to eat. 

A small shadow moved across the yard, and 
Royal Kent, looking up, called the little girl’s at¬ 
tention to a crow. It was alone. Very rarely 
was a crow seen alone, and though crows were 
common sights in that part of the country, not 
often did they visit the little house. So as this 
one flew more closely to the ground and finally 
lit in the very center of the chickenyard, Kent 
and Mavis watched it with great interest. 

At first it walked about with funny, jerky steps 
holding its head slightly sidewise. Its feathers 
were a beautiful glossy black that held a tinge 
of green here and there in the sunlight. Its legs 
and beak were black. 


125 


126 The Little House on the Desert 

The crow, after one look at Mavis, paid no 
more attention to her or to Kent, but shoved 
between the chickens and tried to get a share 
of the grain which Kent had thrown on the 
ground. 

“Well!” exclaimed Kent, “you are in mighty 
tough luck, old chap. Look, Mavis! Half of 
his upper beak is broken off, so he can’t pick up 
anything to eat. I wonder what happened to him 
and how long he has managed to live that way.” 

Sure enough, the crow, try as hard as he could, 
was unable to get even a taste of the grain, and 
the chickens jostled him about while the grain 
kept disappearing as though by magic. 

44 Oh, Royal! Can’t you help him ? The poor 
thing must be starving.” 

44 1 think we can feed the old chap,” answered 
Kent. 44 Wait till I come back and then we’ll 
see how my plan works out for him.” 

Mavis kept very still, fearing she might 
frighten the poor crow away before Kent could 
return. But the bobbing black head showed 
that the bird was still trying to eat the grain. 

“This ought to fix him,” she heard Kent’s 
voice and watched him go to the very center of 
the yard and set a deep but small china bowl on 
the ground. 


The Little House on the Desert 127 

The chickens all rushed toward it to see what 
it might contain, while the crow, left alone, kept 
trying patiently to eat the grain they had de¬ 
serted. Mavis saw that he was still unsuccessful. 
Then Kent chased the chickens away and carried 
the bowl to the side of Mavis’s chair, where he 
placed it on the ground. 

“Bread and milk,” he explained to her. “ You 
see, it makes a soft, mushy food and as it is in a 
deep bowl he can thrust his beak down and easily 
eat all he wants. But now the thing is to make 
him understand this is for him. I shall keep the 
chickens away while he is eating. You watch 
and let me know whether he is able to eat this 
food or not.” 

So they schemed together and, while Kent 
kept feeding grain to the chickens at the far 
end of the yard, Mavis watched the crow. He 
had evidently noticed the chickens rush to the 
bowl. He cocked his sleek head first on one side, 
then on the other, as he blinked at the fussing 
chickens. Then he peeped curiously at the white 
bowl. Crows are very curious about everything, 
and this one was no different from other crows 
in that respect. 

And now this chap walked solemnly toward the 
bowl of bread and milk. At times he stopped 


128 The Little House on the Desert 

and squinted at Mavis, as though he feared she 
intended to play a trick on him. Crows are also 
very sagacious, and often seem to reason things 
out most logically. Finally he reached the bowl 
and looked down into it. 

Cocking his head sidewise, he squinted down 
with one eye. Then as though not trusting that 
eye, he twisted his head so that he could look 
into the bowl with the other eye. After that he 
lifted his head and looked into the bowl with 
both eyes. 

That seemed to satisfy him. With a quick 
jerk he thrust his broken beak deeply into the 
soft food. 

Mavis saw him gulp and swallow it, saw him 
straighten up and look hastily around, as if 
he was afraid someone might come and take the 
bowl away before he had had enough to satisfy 
his hunger. Then his head went bobbing up and 
down so fast that it seemed he did not have time 
to snatch even a mouthful. 

Mavis sat very still, her hands clasped in her 
lap. She was so happy that the poor thing was 
eating, and she did not want to frighten it away. 
But after a few seconds she turned her eyes to 
where Royal Kent was keeping the chickens 
busy. He, too, had seen that their scheme was 


The Little House on the Desert 129 

working, and his smile answered the smile on 
Mavis’s happy face. 

The crow was not able to eat all the food in the 
bowl. At last he straightened up and flew to a 
fence post, where he sat in solemn dignity while 
Kent allowed the chickens to finish the bread and 
milk. 

“Well, old man,” said Kent, “you had a 
square meal to-night, anyway. And if you are as 
smart as I think you are, you will stay right here 
and live with us.” 

The big black bird on the fence post stared at 
him, puffing up and ruffling its feathers. 

“Caw,” it croaked hoarsely. 

Mavis burst out laughing and Kent nodded 
his head. “All right, old fellow. We know that 
you are saying ‘sure’!” 

Then Mavis and her friend heard the supper 
bell and Kent pushed the chair to the front 
porch. 

At supper that evening Grandfather Ruth and 
Kent told many stories they had heard or read 
of crows and their intelligence. 

“There was one crow that made a lot of 
trouble for a troop of colored soldiers in a Texas 
garrison,” the old man said. “One of the sol¬ 
diers told me the story. He said the crow used 


130 The Little House on the Desert 

to go around the barracks as it pleased and was 
a pet with all the men. They called it ‘the Par¬ 
son’ because it was so solemn and its black 
feathers were like the garments of a minister. 

“The trouble began in the company when one 
of the soldiers, who had been sitting on his bunk 
polishing the brass shells of his cartridges, went 
away for a moment. When he returned he found 
that two of the cartridges he had polished beau¬ 
tifully were missing. Also a gold dollar was 
gone. 

“The men helped him look for the lost ar¬ 
ticles, but no trace could be found. So the 
soldier reported the theft to the captain of the 
company. A few days later another man re¬ 
ported that while he had been arranging his 
locker, someone had stolen a gold cuff button. 
Then from time to time other things were stolen, 
and the men began to be suspicious of each other. 
The captain finally decided that he knew which 
man was the thief, and was ready to prefer 
charges against the culprit, have him tried by 
court martial, and, if found guilty, sent to prison. 

“And then the thief was caught in the act. 

“Two of the soldiers saw the Parson drop a 
cartridge down a knothole in the floor of the 
barracks. When the floor was pried up, they 


The Little House on the Desert 131 


found the cuff button, the gold dollar, and all the 
other little things the soldiers had lost. The 
Parson, attracted by the shining surfaces, had 
hidden them away. 

4 ‘That evening the soldiers held a court martial 
of their own, and the Parson was accused of being 
a sneak thief. One soldier acted as the counsel 
for the accused, another soldier was appointed 
the prosecutor, and the different men who had 
lost articles were made witnesses against the 
Parson. The judge listened very impartially to 
all the evidence for and against the prisoner, 
and at the end decided that he was guilty. The 
sentence pronounced was that never again 
should any man of the troop allow the Parson to 
wander about the barracks unless he was under 
guard.” 

“A funny thing happened to me,” Kent took 
up the conversation as the old man was filling his 
empty pipe. “I was riding one day with a cow¬ 
boy for a few miles, and he called my attention to 
a solitary crow perched on a mesquite bush. 

“‘That crow looks as though it is all alone,’ he 
said, ‘but you just watch what happens when I 
shoot.’ 

“He drew his pistol and shot into the air. In 
less time than it takes to tell this, crows swarmed 


132 The Little House on the Desert 

about us as though they had popped out of the 
solid earth, for there were no trees near. We 
rode a little distance very slowly, and the big 
black things kept pace over our heads. When 
we stopped, they all stopped and squatted a 
short distance away. We went on again. So 
did they. 

“They followed us six miles until we reached a 
ranch house where the cowboy was working and 
where I stayed over night. But until after sun¬ 
set all those crows perched on the fence posts 
around the house. Probably waiting for us to 
come out and ride farther. The next morning, 
however, there was not a sign of a crow about the 
place. And the cowboy told me another thing. 
If a lot of crows are flying around a corner of a 
house and one of them is shot, the rest of the 
crows fly in a perfectly straight line but swerve 
off just before reaching the point where the other 
crow was killed.” 

“Oh, I hope this one will stay with us!” ex¬ 
claimed the little girl. “Let’s call him ‘the 
Parson.’” 

“All right,” laughed Kent. “That bird is a 
wise old chap, and now that he has found a good 
boarding house, I have a suspicion that he is 
going to be mighty glad to join our colony.” 


The Little House on the Desert 133 

That night as she was lying in bed watching a 
speck of light grow larger as the train rumbled 
toward the house, Mavis lifted her head from the 
pillow and leaned on her elbow to squint at a 
black spot that loomed against the headlight of 
the engine. 

Hooo - eee -ooo, screamed the whistle. 

Ho — ho—ho ! 

“Caw!” croaked the crow contemptuously as 
the train rattled over the steel tracks to distant 
places. 

And the yellow rays from the lamp in the win¬ 
dow showed the Parson sitting on a fence post 
just beyond the little flower garden. 

“Caw!” it called a second time. Then as the 
engine did not reply, the Parson tucked his head 
under his wing and went to sleep. 




CHAPTER XVII 


ND so the Parson joined the colony of the 



little house on the desert. There were 


other queer new pets, also. Kent had caught 
several horned toads, which he put into a fairly 
large flat box. About three inches of sand 
covered the bottom of the box and the little 
creatures could bury themselves completely out 
of sight. 

These strange little animals were of different 
sizes. The tiniest one, just a baby, measured an 
inch and a half from its nose to the tip of its 
tapering tail. The other four ranged upward in 
size, and the largest was five inches long. They 
could not hop or jump like ordinary toads or 
frogs, but just crawled along the ground. 

The horned toads were perfectly harmless, al¬ 
though their flat bodies fairly bristled with tiny 
horns like fine brown splinters. Their skins 
were rather loose and marked by waving lines 
in black, brick-red, and clear yellow, and these 
waving strips ran from side to side. Their heads 


134 


135 


The Little House on the Desert 

looked as though they were encased in coats-of- 
mail with two very long horns at the top, and 
smaller horns below and near the openings of the 
ears. 

The under part of their throats and bodies 
were grayish white, very soft and fine to the 
touch, and looked like kid. The bodies were 
flat, but the toads could puff up until they became 
quite thick. The general effect was a flat oval 
outline at the two sides. Their little front paws 
and legs looked exactly like the arms and hands 
of a fat baby, though the nails were very long. 
The hind legs joined the base of the tail, and the 
tail tapered to a very fine point and was covered 
with almost invisible horns. All of these horns 
were brown and appeared to be highly polished. 

At times Mavis had seen a horned toad scurry 
past her window, but she had never really known 
about them before. Now Kent told her that 
they ate small insects and that at regular in¬ 
tervals the horned toads shed their skins, as rat¬ 
tlesnakes do. 

When she found that the first toad he brought 
to her would not harm her, Mavis held it in her 
hand and examined the beautiful markings, the 
many tiny horns, and stroked its little head, 
letting her finger slip gently along the back from 


136 The Little House on the Desert 

the tip of the nose toward the tail. The horned 
toad put its head down closely against the palm 
of her hand, shut its eyes tightly, and remained 
perfectly still. 

“Gracious!” she exclaimed. “It has gone to 
sleep.” 

Kent laughed. “If you rub its back the other 
way, from tail to head, that toad will wake up 
and run like a race horse.” 

He placed it on the floor, but the toad re¬ 
mained perfectly limp, as though it were dead. 
Then Kent laid his finger on the back near the 
tail and instantly the horned toad jerked up its 
head and scooted across the room, stopping only 
when its nose bumped against the wall. 

After that Kent showed Mavis that if he 
gently rubbed or touched either side of the little 
creature, at once it tipped that side down against 
the floor, while the other side remained up in the 
air, just as a dog cocks its head sidewise when 
any one rubs its ear. 

Within a short time Kent had collected four 
other horned toads and they all seemed to be 
contented living in the flat box of sand. One 
day he rigged up a tiny wagon from a match 
box and made a harness of light cord. Tying 
the cord loosely about the body of the largest 


The Little House on the Desert 137 

toad, Kent hitched two other toads, each one 
ahead of the other. Then he put the baby toad 
in the little wagon. 

“Now we are ready for our drive,” he an¬ 
nounced, and the family waited for the team to 
start. It did not move. 

“All right, boys, you won’t balk very long,” 
he laughed, as he ran his finger over the back 
of the largest toad, from tail to head. 

It started with wildly working legs and pushed 
against the one in front. That one shoved the 
other. So the “tandem four-in-hand,” as Kent 
called it, darted madly across the room, while 
the one passenger blinked in amazement at its 
new experience in life. 

Mavis laughed at the journey, and Kent has¬ 
tened after the runaway team, which halted 
against the wall. There he picked up the leader 
and headed him in the opposite, direction, and 
once more the little match box wagon was jerked 
rapidly across the room. 

After this journey Kent unhitched the 
“horses” and put them back into their stables, 
which was what Mavis called their sand box after 
that. And every one of the five toads, as soon 
as it touched the sand, buried itself, head and 
tail and body, entirely out of sight. Not even 


138 The Little House on the Desert 

the tip of a horn could be seen. Evidently they 
had all had enough of such work for the day. 

So between waving to the trains, and the visits 
to feed the chickens and the Parson, and watch¬ 
ing Yappy, besides having the five horned toads, 
and best of all, her beautiful doll for which she 
made pretty dresses, Mavis was a very happy 
little girl, even though she was so far away from 
any town and had never seen a child in her whole 
life. 

She was very sure that no boy or girl could be 
a better playmate than her friend, Royal Kent. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


W HILE Mavis amused herself with her pets 
and her doll, and the old folks took care 
of the chickens and cow and calf, Royal Kent 
again drove for two days over the dusty road, 
stopping for the first night at a ranch thirty 
miles from the Ruths’ home. 

The second night he finished his journey of 
sixty miles at a small group of houses. The 
town as yet was too small even to have a name. 
It was not indicated by a tiny dot on any map, 
nor mentioned on the printed railroad time 
tables. Those who went to the place for sup¬ 
plies called it 4 ‘The Town.” There was no 
post office, so mail had to be hauled by a buck- 
board from the nearest post-office town. 

There was a small store with a few houses 
scattered far apart. All of these buildings were 
of adobe bricks which kept them very cool in 
summer and equally warm in winter. None of 
the houses was more than one story high. 

The adobe bricks are used to build houses all 


139 


140 The Little House on the Desert 

over Mexico and also in southern Arizona, be¬ 
cause they are substantial and cheap. Mexicans 
are expert at making them. As a rule each 
adobe brick is about eighteen inches long, ten 
wide, and six inches thick. They are made of 
certain proportions of mud and sand mixed with 
water to form a thick paste. This is poured into 
moulds which look like gigantic window sashes 
without the usual six panes of glass. These 
moulds have neither tops nor bottoms, just sides. 

Only certain kinds of earth, however, will make 
good, hard adobe bricks; for if there is too much 
sand or any alkali, the bricks will crumble after 
a short time. Good adobe bricks are so hard 
that even a sharp hatchet cannot chop them, and 
often the adobe will turn the edge of chisel or ax. 

After the Mexican adobe-worker has found 
the right soil, he and his fellow workers pour 
water upon it and work it until they have a big 
hole of soft mud. Then the men, bare-legged, 
tramp and mix it with poles until the right con¬ 
sistency is attained. After that the mud is 
poured into the many moulds which lie on the 
ground near by. It is necessary to allow the 
mud to remain undisturbed in these moulds until 
the top is crusted by the dry air and hot sun. 
Then the mould is lifted carefully from the new- 


141 


The Little House on the Desert 

formed bricks and carried a little distance so 
that more mud may be poured into it to make 
more bricks. 

The mud bricks cannot be made in cold 
weather, because they must be exposed to the 
hot sun. They are easily made in the dry air 
and intense sunshine of summers in Arizona, 
New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and old Mexico. 
When the sides and top of the bricks harden 
sufficiently to be turned over without breaking, 
the other side is exposed to the sun. It is very 
slow work to make a good adobe brick. 

However, once the bricks are made, the rest 
of the work does not take much time. And as 
the large bricks are laid, between them a thick 
layer of soft mud is placed by trowel. Naturally 
when this soft mud paste dries, it cements the 
bricks together into a thick firm wall. If the 
top of this wall is protected from beating rains, 
the adobe house will last for years. That is 
why most of the adobe buildings have flat roofs 
which, if they are wooden, project two feet or 
more all around. But the poorer people, espe¬ 
cially the Mexicans, have roofs on their homes 
which are made of solid mud supported by the 
tough limbs of trees laid closely together, some¬ 
thing like the old-time log cabins. 


142 The Little House on the Desert 

If such a roof leaks it does not worry the fam¬ 
ily, for it is only necessary for the men to climb 
up and dump more mud on the leaky spot after 
the rain has ceased. 

So the adobe house with mud roof has some 
advantages apart from safety from fire. 

Kent drove his team to a corral where the 
horses of those who came to the town could be 
stabled. In the corral were stalls and in many of 
the stalls stood cowponies with large saddles on 
their backs. In one stall three tiny gray donkeys 
waited patiently. These little animals are called 
burros in that part of the country, and the 
Mexicans pile wood on their backs, to transport 
it to some distant mining camp where no fire¬ 
wood is obtainable except in this way. 

Often ten or twenty burros, piled so high with 
split wood that only their heads and feet may 
be seen, trot sturdily over long distances with¬ 
out appearing to notice their burdens. Yet, 
as this shows, even obtaining wood is frequently a 
problem in the frontier country. 

Kent could not resist going over to the burros 
and rubbing their heads (for he was a lover of 
all animals), and they seemed to know that he 
was their friend. 

Then he went to the little adobe building that 


The Little House on the Desert 143 

was used as a store, and after he had selected 
the few things necessary, he turned toward an 
adobe house which had a front porch covered 
with vines. Around the doorway hung strings 
of bright red chili peppers, dried in the sun. 
These peppers were used by the Mexican families 
in seasoning their foods, such as enchiladas , chili 
con came , tamales , or to pour over meats as a 
sauce. 

In front of the house a whitewashed picket 
fence enclosed a little patch of green grass and 
many different kinds of cacti which bore gorgeous 
blossoms, some of them red, others yellow. But 
people who admired these beautiful flowers never 
picked them with their fingers. Almost every 
inch of the blossoms except the petals was 
covered with thorns that were so tiny as to be 
nearly invisible, and once these thorns enter 
the flesh they become deeply imbedded and cause 
great pain. 

After the blossoms fall a plum-like fruit 
forms, and the Mexicans knock this off with 
sticks. By placing it on live coals, the thorns 
and skin are removed, and the fruit pulp can be 
made into preserves, or sometimes into a cactus 
candy. 

Often a dog, chasing a jack rabbit, would bump 


144 The Little House on the Desert 

into the cactus plant and his nose be filled with 
the fine thorns, so that he would suffer intense 
agony. 

Kent had learned all these things during his 
wanderings about in Arizona before he had 
reached the Ruths’ house on the desert. For 
several weeks he had stayed in the little town. 
In fact, the house with the garden and green- 
vined porch was the place where he had stopped 
before he followed the road that led him to the 
home of Mavis. 

When he came within sight of the “Casita 
Verduga” or Little Green House, as the home of 
the Rojas family was known, Kent smiled. For 
in the shadow cast by the porch a little Mexican 
girl was kneeling. A large, smooth stone was 
in front of her and the center of the stone was 
hollowed out. She held another stone, oval in 
shape, which fitted perfectly into the hollow. 
Beside her was a saucepan. 

Kent smiled again. He remembered one day, 
just after he had arranged to board with the 
Rojas family, that he had found Ramoncita 
Rojas at work in this same way. The saucepan 
beside her had been filled with corn kernels. 
They had been soaked in lye so as to soften the 
kernels and remove the outer thin hull. Then 


145 


The Little House on the Desert 

Ramoncita showed him how she worked these 
softened kernels between the two stones, keeping 
the corn moist by sprinkling it now and then 
with clear, fresh water. As she worked, a thin 
sheet of cornmeal gradually slid from between 
the two stones. This paste was placed aside, 
ready for use. 

Kent explained to Ramoncita, who under¬ 
stood a little English, that he wanted to work 
the two stones, which the Mexicans call a met ate, 
and Ramoncita had moved so that he might try 
it for himself. 

She had shown him how to hold his hands and 
how to work the stone, and Kent did his best 
to follow her instructions. But at the end of 
ten minutes he had not even a teaspoonful of 
meal, though he did have two very red spots on 
the palms of his hands where the stone had chafed 
his flesh. 

Ramoncita was too polite to laugh. Mexicans 
are always polite to any person who enters their 
homes and, no matter how poor they may be, 
they welcome you heartily and share the best 
they have. 

Now, as Kent approached the house, Ra¬ 
moncita looked up. As she recognized him she 
sprang to her feet, her big black eyes shining 


146 The Little House on the Desert 

with pleasure, as she called out to her mother, 
“Senor Royal ees come back!” 

The little girl’s mother came to the door. She 
was dressed in a black cotton gown and over her 
head was thrown a long black shawl which hung 
loosely at the sides and back. In a mixture of 
English and Mexican languages Senora Rojas 
invited him into the house. 

The dirt floor was hard and clean. The sides 
of the room, though of rough mud, had many 
ornaments and sacred pictures here and there. 
A small alcove, high up on one side of the room, 
held a statue of the Holy Child in His Mother’s 
arms. In front of this shrine was a little shelf 
and on the shelf a deep saucer in which bright 
cactus blossoms had been placed. 

Everything was scrupulously clean in the 
Mexican home, and Senora Rojas hastened to 
arrange a place at a table. When Kent was 
seated, the Mexican woman brought a plate of 
smoking hot tamales which she set on the oil- 
cloth-covered table. As Kent untied the thin 
string that held the tamale at either end, 
Ramoncita told him all the things she had been 
doing and learning since he had last been in their 
home. 

Kent laughed and asked if she remembered 


147 


The Little House on the Desert 

how he had tried to cut the tamale like a piece 
of meat the first time he had eaten one. To 
eat a tamale , which consists of a number of dried 
corn leaves, one must remove each leaf and eat 
the cornmeal that is spread upon it. In the 
very center of the tamale there is a delicious con¬ 
coction of chicken meat stewed with cornmeal, 
chili sauce, raisins, and olives. 

With the tamales was a dish of tortillas , made 
of the cornmeal Ramoncita had ground out with 
the metate . It is not easy to learn how to take 
the ball of cornmeal and, holding it between the 
palms of the hands, pat it back and forth while it 
grows larger and larger into a flat cake about 
eight or ten inches in diameter. A tortilla 
takes the place of bread and is very palatable. 
To cook it the Mexicans lay it on top of a stove; 
or if there happens to be no stove, as is often 
the case, the tortilla is placed in a frying pan set 
on a bed of live coals. 

No place could have offered a more kingly 
feast than that in the little Mexican home, for 
the hospitality was sincere. Kent understood 
that even if the Rojas family knew that by feed¬ 
ing the guest to-day there would not be enough 
frijoles (red beans) for mahana (to-morrow), they 
would have offered the food just as generously. 


148 


The Little House on the Desert 


When the meal was over Kent drew some 
money from his pocket, but Senora Rojas smiled 
and shook her head, gently pushing back his 
extended hand. And Kent knew that if he 
insisted he would be insulting them. So he 
thanked them, and wondered how he could in 
some way recompense them. As he happened 
to glance at the little shrine, he took the coins 
from his pocket and laid them beside the saucer 
of cactus blooms, and Senora Rojas said softly, 
“Muchas gracias, senor” (Many thanks, sir.) 

It was then that Ramoncita showed him her 
new pets, a family of canaries, four in number, 
which she had raised since he had been in town. 
And Kent told the little Mexican girl and her 
mother about Mavis and her pets. 

Senora Rojas’s eyes filled with tears as he told 
of the little crippled girl, and Ramoncita, listen¬ 
ing eagerly, suddenly exclaimed, “You take a 
bird to her!” 

“Let me buy one,” said Kent, but mother and 
child at once refused positively. They wanted 
to send a gift to the child who could not run 
about and play. 

And so it was settled. The next morning, 
when Kent drove his team to the door of Casita 
Verduga, Ramoncita came from the house, hold- 


The Little House on the Desert 149 

ing a beautiful brass cage and in the cage was 
a saucy canary. Then with many thanks and 
farewells Kent drove away. As he looked back 
the smiling family waved their hands, and Kent 
lifted his hat in response. 


CHAPTER XIX 


T HROUGH the day Kent kept stout paper 
wrapped about the cage, leaving an opening 
at the top, and the canary seemed not to worry 
over the jostling of the wagon. 

When the team was unharnessed that evening 
and Kent had cooked his supper over a camp¬ 
fire, he sat smoking his pipe and watching the 
bird which hopped from perch to perch of its 
cage, pausing at intervals to eat a seed, take a 
sip of water, or sway to and fro in the little swing 
at the top of the cage. Kent had removed the 
paper so the bird could look about. 

The sun had gone to sleep and everything was 
silent on the wide stretching prairie. Once in a 
while a quail would call from its hiding place in 
the brush, or a cottontail rabbit sit up in fright 
at discovering the man who was quietly smoking 
by a campfire. Kent watched all these little 
folk of the desert with great interest. Then, 
after hobbling his team so it could not stray very 
far, he laid his blankets on the ground and pre¬ 
pared to sleep. 


150 


151 


The Little House on the Desert 

A full moon like a ball of quicksilver rose in 
the sky and then from a near-by mesquite bush 
rang the song of a mocking bird. The canary, 
which had already tucked its head beneath its 
wing, woke up and blinked. As though deter¬ 
mined not to be outdone, the canary started 
to sing as loudly as it could. 

The mocking bird stopped singing, but the 
canary kept on. When it paused, as if out of 
breath, the mocking bird began very softly to 
imitate the canary’s song. At first it made mis¬ 
takes, but it kept on trying very patiently and 
very softly. 

The canary again started to sing and the mock¬ 
ing bird was silent. Then suddenly the mocking 
bird burst out full force. It had caught the 
canary’s notes and when the canary joined in the 
song, it sounded like two canaries singing a duet. 

All went well until the mocking bird began 
variations of its own. The canary stopped 
sulkily when it heard the call of a quail, the cry 
of a kildee, and the squawk of a frightened hen. 
That was too much of a mixture, and the canary 
fluffed up its feathers and settled back into a 
yellow ball, tucking its head tightly under its 
wing, as though determined not to hear one note 
the other bird sang. 


1 52 


The Little House on the Desert 


But the mocking bird sang on and on through 
the night, flooding the air with melody, until the 
moon dropped out of sight and the stars grew 
pale and finally disappeared in the pink sky that 
told another day had dawned. 

Over a fire of dry wood Royal Kent boiled 
coffee and fried eggs and bacon in the skillet. 
Slices of bread he toasted above the coals from 
the burning logs. 

The canary, wide awake now, hopped about, 
chirping cheerfully. Already it seemed to have 
forgotten the rival musician of the night. Kent 
had given the bird fresh seed, fresh water 
from his canteen, and had also filled the little 
tub. The canary, not worried because it was in 
a strange place instead of the home of Ramoncita 
Rojas, jumped into the bath and splashed vigor¬ 
ously. Then, after drying its feathers, the 
canary sang its morning hymn of thanksgiving. 
But this time there was no reply from the mock¬ 
ing bird. It had, no doubt, gone home to sleep, 
for it had sung all night long. 

So the journey was resumed, and shortly be¬ 
fore sunset Kent saw a handkerchief waving at 
the window and knew that Mavis had seen him. 
When he came into her room the old folks were fol¬ 
lowing him, and their smiling faces met her eyes. 


z' 

The Little House on the Desert 153 

“I have an addition to our menagerie,” an¬ 
nounced Kent in his most dignified manner. 
“Guess what it is.” 

“Oh, I can’t guess. Please tell me quick!” 
begged Mavis. 

From behind him Kent produced the brass cage 
in which the yellow bird was swinging saucily. 
Mavis could only give a little choked cry of ec¬ 
stasy. There were no words to express her delight. 

Then Kent told how the little Mexican girl, 
Ramoncita Rojas, had sent the bird as a gift. 
After that the whole family helped fix a place at 
the window for the cage. Grandma found a 
stout nail. Grandpa brought the hammer, and 
Mavis held the cage until the nail was firmly in 
place and the cage hung upon it. 

“Suppose we call him Nugget,” suggested 
Royal Kent. “He is so yellow that he looks like 
a nugget of gold, and then he has a golden song 
in his throat. I wish you all could have heard 
him sing last night when the mocking bird sang 
with him. It was beautiful.” 

At this Nugget, as though to prove that Kent 
had not overpraised the music, fluffed up his 
breast, cocked his head on the side, and as the 
feathers of his throat ruffled out, the room was 
filled with melody. 


154 The Little House on the Desert 

Mavis, scarcely seeming to breathe, watched 
the little songster until he ended with a low trill 
deep in his yellow throat. 

But Nugget was not the only gift the warm¬ 
hearted Mexican family had entrusted to Royal 
Kent. At supper that night the tamales and 
tortillas which Senora Rojas had fixed up care¬ 
fully were steamed by Grandmother Ruth, and 
Kent showed Mavis how to open the tamales , 
while he explained how they were made. He 
did not forget to tell of the blisters he had ac¬ 
quired when he had tried to grind meal with a 
metate . 

The moon which sailed over the little house 
that night when everyone was asleep saw a tiny 
yellow ball of feathers on a perch in a cage. Far 
away on the prairie toward town a mocking 
bird, sitting on a twig of a mesquite bush, was 
singing happily, though its song had been stolen 
from a canary the previous night. 

Neither the canary nor the mocking bird knew 
that other mocking birds would steal those notes 
and weave them into melodies of their own, so 
that long afterward the echo of the canary’s song 
would be heard in lonely places. 


CHAPTER XX 


W ITHIN a few days Nugget had become so 
tame that he was allowed to fly about 
Mavis’s room, and his cage door was left open 
all the time. Often he perched on top of a 
picture or the back of a chair, flying so swiftly 
that he looked like a passing sunbeam. 

When Mavis held out her hand, Nugget did 
not hesitate to light upon her finger and sing 
into her face. Royal Kent had shown Mavis 
how to hold a bit of lump sugar between her 
lips, and it was not long before Nugget dis~ 
covered it. Perched on her finger he nibbled 
away at the sugar, and Mavis said that he was 
kissing her. And nobody was surprised at all 
when Nugget finally would peck at the little 
girl’s lips when there was not a bit of sugar 
there. 

The canary felt perfectly at home. He would 
go into his cage whenever he wanted to eat, 
take a drink or bathe, but most of his time he 
spent outside the cage. At nightfall, however, 

155 


156 The Little House on the Desert 

he went home, as though he felt more safe inside 
his house. 

He was walking around on the floor one day 
when one of the horned toads scurried across 
the room. Nugget had not seen the horned 
toads before that time, so he cocked his yellow 
head sidewise and walked after the toad. The 
toad saw the bird and tried to get out of sight 
by hurrying faster. But Nugget kept right be¬ 
hind the toad. 

Suddenly, finding that the toad was too fast 
for him, the bird flew over it and came down on 
the flat horny back. Then the toad raced as 
fast as it could, but Nugget, apparently enjoying 
the ride, sat as firmly as any cowpuncher ever 
sat on a bucking bronco. 

Back and forth ran the horned toad, while 
Mavis and the rest of the family watched the 
queer ride. And then Nugget, as though having 
had enough of it, flew up to the window casing 
and sat there singing. 

But after that first joy-ride Nugget often 
darted down and perched on the back of one of 
the toads. He never pecked at them, just sat 
very firmly and waited for them to move. 

They seemed to realize after a time that he 
would not hurt them, so they did not run at all 


The Little House on the Desert 157 

when he lit upon their backs. That did not 
suit Nugget. He wanted a ride. So if the toad 
on which he first lit did not move, Nugget would 
try another one. As soon as he found it had 
stopped, he would proceed to one that was mov¬ 
ing about. 

Nugget had many other funny ways. He had 
tasted Mavis’s saucer of oatmeal and cream one 
day and liked it so well that a tiny butter pat 
was fixed for him with oatmeal, cream, and sugar. 
At first Kent had not put on any cream for the 
bird, fearing that it might disagree with him and 
the family all laughed when Nugget, after tast¬ 
ing his own oatmeal, flew over and began eating 
from Mavis’s dish. When Grandmother Ruth 
poured a tiny bit of cream on Nugget’s oatmeal, 
the bird at once returned and ate heartily. 
Never would he eat his own oatmeal unless it was 
fixed exactly like the oatmeal in Mavis’s dish. 

Nugget liked butter, but butter was not good 
for him. So when he would dart like a flash 
across the table and try to snatch a mouthful 
of butter, the family would shoo him away. If 
in spite of their efforts he managed to get a taste, 
he would at once perch on a picture frame and 
sing defiantly, as though he were saying, “I 
fooled you all that time.” 


158 The Little House on the Desert 

Mavis’s room opened into the dining room, so 
Nugget soon learned to follow the little girl’s chair 
to the table. Often the bird would fly into the 
dining room when the bell sounded. He would 
get there before any one else of the family. Then 
he would perch on the back of a chair, and when 
he saw Royal Kent pushing Mavis through the 
door, little Nugget would sing as though his 
tiny heart would burst from joy. Once Mavis 
was in her own place, the bird would perch on 
her shoulder. 

Sometimes he would get on the handle of her 
teaspoon while she was eating a soft-boiled egg. 
In that way Nugget could steal a mouthful of 
egg for himself. But out of Nugget’s familiar 
ways there almost came a tragedy one day. 

Mavis had a cup of hot coffee beside her plate 
at breakfast and Nugget decided that he would 
see what was in the cup. He flew swiftly from 
her shoulder to the rim of the cup and looked 
down at the brown liquid. Maybe he thought 
it was muddy water. Anyway he took a cautious 
sup, then another. But no one was prepared 
to have him take a bath in the cup of coffee. 
And that was just what he tried to do. Nugget 
had no idea how hot or how deep that coffee 
was, and there would have been a very sad story 


The Little House on the Desert 159 

had not Royal Kent caught the bird and saved 
him from being badly scalded. 

It was a few days after this adventure that 
Nugget learned there were things he must not do. 

Between the dining room and kitchen of the 
little house was a small room with many shelves, 
and in this room Grandmother Ruth set the pans 
of milk which were ready to be skimmed. The 
rich cream made a thick crust on each pan, and 
from this cream was made the butter for the 
family use. 

Nugget, observing this open door, went on a 
voyage of discovery for himself, and not only flew 
into the milk room but went on into the kitchen. 
Grandmother Ruth was there, and fearing that 
the bird might fly against the hot stove pipe, or 
fall upon the stove where she was baking bread, 
seized a dish towel and waved it at him. 

The bird, either frightened because he was in 
a strange place, or else fearing that the dish 
towel would hurt him, became confused and 
flew wildly about the kitchen. At last he darted 
through the door to the milk room. But instead 
of keeping straight on to his accustomed quarters 
he knocked against the wall and fell, splash! 
right into a pan of unskimmed milk. 

Grandmother cried out, and Kent came run- 


160 The Little House on the Desert 

ning. When he reached the milk room and 
looked at the pan of cream, he thought he was 
seeing a small white ocean in a terrible storm. 
Nugget was splashing at a great rate, trying to 
get out, but too frightened to help himself. 

His little heart was fluttering terribly when 
Kent lifted him gently and carried him back into 
Mavis’s room. 

Nugget was certainly the queerest-looking 
canary ever seen. The thick, oily cream hung 
from his head like a veil. It draped his whole 
body and dripped from the tip of his tail feath¬ 
ers. Nugget blinked up with one eye and gave 
a forlorn chirp. 

Though the family were all sorry for him they 
could not help laughing at his plight. Then 
while Mavis held the bird Kent wiped off as 
much of the cream as was possible. Nugget’s 
troubles were not over, however. His feathers 
would not fluff out. The oil in the cream made 
them stick tightly together. 

Grandmother Ruth brought warm water and 
sponged him gently. Still the feathers stuck. 
When the bird was placed on the window ledge, 
he tried to fly, but alas! he could only wave 
his sticky wings. 

, Finally Nugget decided that he could clean 


The Little House on the Desert 161 

his feathers with his beak. He tried it, but with 
no success. Then he got into the earth of a 
flowerpot on Mavis’s window and wriggled and 
squirmed, just as hens act in soft earth when 
they are taking a dirt bath. 

Nugget had been a bright yellow bird when he 
had started for that milk-room door. His bath 
in the cream had made him almost white, and 
now, after scratching and scrambling in the 
dirt which clung to the oil from the cream, poor 
Nugget looked more like a blackbird than a 
canary. However, he was able to fly a short 
distance. 

No one could help laughing at him, but to the 
great surprise of them all, Nugget flew right into 
their faces, one after the other, uttering little 
angry cries and beating their faces and hands 
with his wings. 

It was bad enough, he must have thought, to 
have all those terrible things happen to him 
without the family laughing. 

So Kent put him into his cage and brought a 
tub of warm water and Nugget lost no time 
getting into that bath and splashing as hard as 
he could. After each dip he would get out and 
try to clean his feathers with his beak. But 
though he worked hard to get clean, it was fully 


16& The Little House on the Desert 

a week before Nugget looked like himself again. 

After that one experience Nugget had no de¬ 
sire to explore. Though all the doors of the 
house might be left open, he was satisfied to 
stay in Mavis’s room or in the dining room with 
the family. 

But whenever the family laughed at him, he 
at once got ready to fight by flying at their 
faces. They decided that it made him think 
they were remembering his milk bath and laugh¬ 
ing at that again. 


CHAPTER XXI 


S UMMER was over. The cool days of early 
November had turned the green vines to 
brittle brown stems. Grandmother Ruth and 
Royal Kent, aided by the old man, had dug up 
many of the plants and put them into tin cans 
full of earth. Then shelves were arranged at 
each window. So though it was bleak outdoors 
the little home was cheerful and bright. 

The trees which had been planted had grown 
thriftily through the summer months, and the 
family now wondered whether the winter would 
prove too cold for semi-tropical trees. How¬ 
ever, Kent took every precaution possible to 
protect the trees till spring. He wrapped them 
in folds of sacking and heaped earth high about 
the roots. 

“ When they are older,” he said, “the bark will 
be tougher and able to resist the cold. If it 
grows very cold we will use smudge pots as they 
do in California when the oranges are in danger.” 
So the family made ready for winter storms. 

163 


164 The Little House on the Desert 

Mavis, in her chair that day, had finished feeding 
the chickens in the yard and was waiting for 
Kent to get through milking the cow. When 
these chores were over he would, as usual, take 
her back to the house. At the side of her chair 
the Parson gave a final bob of his black head 
and squinted sidewise into the almost empty 
bowl from which he had been eating his bread 
and milk. Then he puffed out his chest and 
stalked solemnly toward the chicken coop. 
Mavis watched him curiously. 

Each evening previous to this one the Parson 
had flown to a branch in a cottonwood tree near 
the windmill. But now he reached the chicken 
coop and walked into it. Mavis saw him fly 
up to the highest perch and settle down as 
though he had never passed a night anywhere 
else in his whole life. 

“Royal, look at the Parson,” she called out, 
and the young man peeked into the chicken 
coop. 

The Parson looked down at him, but did not 
stir on the perch. 

“Well,” Kent laughed, “the old scamp evi¬ 
dently has received a message that winter is 
coming, and so he is locating his quarters in the 
most convenient place he knows. He is not 


The Little House on the Desert 165 

going to go very far from his boarding house, 
anyway.” 

Kent waited to see whether the chickens would 
object to the Parson living in their house. But 
Patrick, Bridget, Happy Hooligan, Mary Ann, 
and even General Pershing seemed satisfied, and 
remained on a lower perch while the Parson kept 
possession of the very highest one in the coop. 

But that night there was a tremendous com¬ 
motion in the chickenyard, and Kent dressed 
hurriedly to see what was the matter. All of the 
chickens were crying out with the full strength 
of their throats, and when Kent, lantern in 
hand, reached the coop the commotion was 
something fearful. He was sure that a stray 
coyote had gotten among the chickens. 

But when the rays from the lantern flashed 
into the coop, Kent shouted with laughter. The 
perch on which General Pershing, Patrick, 
Bridget, Hooligan, and Mary Ann had settled 
after the Parson had preempted the top perch 
had broken loose at one end and slanted at a 
sharp angle toward the ground. Instead of let¬ 
ting go the inclined perch, all the chickens 
were clinging desperately to it and shrieking in 
fright. 

Kent waved the lantern at them, but they 


166 The Little House on the Desert 

screamed more loudly and clutched the roost, 
and it was not until Kent had put the lantern 
down on the ground, grabbed each chicken 
by its legs, and deposited it on a level perch, 
that the noise subsided. As Kent closed the 
chicken-coop door behind him again, the Par¬ 
son’s glistening eyes blinked at him. 

Inside Mary Ann gave a hysterical cackle as 
the crow twisted his head and regarded her in¬ 
tently. 

“ Cluck—cluck—cluck—cluck,” gasped the 
hen. 

“Caw!” retorted the Parson in disgust, and 
tucked his head beneath his wing. But really 
the Parson had been to blame for the trouble, 
for Patrick, Bridget, and Mary Ann had given 
up the top perch to him, and the lower perch 
had not been strong enough for the extra weight 
when shared with Pershing and Hooligan. 

Not many days after the Parson had solved 
his housekeeping problems for the winter Mavis 
found great amusement watching Yappy trans¬ 
port portions of food which he saved each day 
from his breakfast. These he was carrying very 
carefully to some place beneath the porch. 

Royal Kent had found a hole gnawed through 
the wooden bottom of the big box and this led 


167 


The Little House on the Desert 

directly into a tunnel which evidently had an 
exit under the front porch. 

But one day a week after this discovery Yappy 
did not make his appearance at his regular break¬ 
fast time, and Kent knelt down beside the porch 
calling the prairie dog by name to coax him from 
his hiding place. Yappy finally answered, but 
he was not under the porch. His bark sounded 
from beneath the floor of Mavis’s room, and 
though all the family tried to coax him out, he 
remained in the same place. 

“Maybe his tunnel has caved in,” spoke 
Mavis, “and he can’t find his way out again. 
It will take him so long to dig another one, he 
will be awfully hungry.” 

“No danger he will starve,” laughed Kent. 
“Yappy has already stored enough food to carry 
him through the winter. It may be he has 
made up his mind not to come out again till warm 
weather, as so many wild animals do, you know.” 

Then the entire family gathered in Mavis’s 
room and while they planned how to get Yappy 
out, in case he were trapped beneath the house, 
the little rascal kept barking shrilly, as though 
asking why they were not working to help him 
escape. 

At last Kent turned to the Grandmother Ruth 


168 The Little House on the Desert 

and said, “If you don’t mind, I can take up one of 
the boards of the floor so he can come up into the 
room, unless he is caught in some way.” 

“Why, of course!” she answered at once. “I 
never thought of that.” 

Armed with a saw, hammer, and chisel, Kent 
pried up a board, and the instant it w T as lifted a 
few inches Yappy popped up and sat blinking 
around at them all. Then he went over to 
Mavis and crawled upon her knee. 

Grandmother Ruth often made candy for 
Mavis. Sometimes it was the old-fashioned pull 
candy, so that the little girl could have the fun 
of pulling it into long, white sticks. But the 
plate now on the table beside Mavis’s chair held 
chocolate candy. 

Yappy was very fond of candy and sugar, and 
had always been given his share of the sweet 
things. And now that he saw the plate his nose 
twitched inquiringly and Mavis took a piece of 
candy from the plate. He was sitting up on her 
knee, and as she held the candy to him, instead 
of seizing it with his paws as he usually did, 
Yappy stiffened and looked at it. His nose 
wrinkled up in a comical way. With a back¬ 
ward jerk of his body he raised his tiny paw and 
gave the bit of chocolate such a smart slap that 


169 


The Little House on the Desert 

it flew out of Mavis’s hand and bounced on the 
floor. Yappy barked furiously and the fur on 
his back rose in a stiff ridge. 

When the family had finished laughing at the 
funny incident, Mavis offered him a lump of 
sugar which he accepted with real eagerness and 
ate as fast as he could. Then she again offered 
a piece of the chocolate and Yappy again slapped 
it from her fingers and scolded more angrily 
than before. This time he was so insulted that 
he jumped from her lap and scurried for the open¬ 
ing in the floor before any one could stop him. 
So the board was not nailed down again that 
day. 

“The next time he comes up,” remarked Kent, 
“I shall be more prompt in closing that place.” 

The very next morning Yappy again barked 
beneath the room, and when the board was lifted 
he hopped up at once. Kent hastened to replace 
the board and Yappy, watching him, showed 
very plainly that he did not like Kent meddling 
with the opening. In fact, as soon as the board 
was in place properly, Yappy set to gnawing 
at it. 

Kent picked him up and carried him out 
to the big box. Yappy sat up and looked hur¬ 
riedly about him. Then at once he ducked 


170 The Little House on the Desert 

down into his tunnel, and in a very few minutes 
the family heard the little rascal barking beneath 
Mavis’s room. He evidently considered that the 
opening in the floor was his private entrance 
into the house. 

“Well,” commented Grandmother Ruth, “we 
can’t leave that board loose all the time, or some¬ 
one will trip over it. And if we have to keep 
pulling the nails every time Yappy wants to come 
and visit Mavis, the board will soon split. So 
I think the best way all around would be to cut 
the board across and put a leather hinge on the 
two ends. Then we can lift it, like a trapdoor, 
when Yappy comes to make his call.” 

And that was what they did. 

From that day on, whenever the prairie dog 
barked beneath the room, Mavis would call the 
family and one of them would lift the board. It 
was not closed again that day until Yappy 
had said good-bye to them all and had gone 
down the opening in the floor beneath which he 
now had established his winter quarters. 

In fact, he used his big box only as a dining 
room, or, it might be called, his marketing place. 
He went there each morning regularly to inspect 
his daily supply of food, and after he had eaten 
all he wished, he would carry the extra food down 


The Little House on the Desert 171 

the tunnel. Later the folks would hear him 
chattering to himself under the house. 

At first Mavis was afraid that now Yappy 
knew he could escape he would make another 
tunnel and creep through it, so that he could 
return to Prairie Dog Town. Though she did 
not want her pet to be lonesome, she knew how 
much she would miss him and hoped that he 
would not leave her. 

One day Kent discovered that Yappy did have 
another tunnel. For the little chap was walking 
all around the front of the house. But though 
the prairie dog knew that he was perfectly free, 
he made no attempt to desert his friends. 


CHAPTER XXII 


M AVIS, sitting at her window, started in 
surprise as she saw something moving 
toward the little home. It was not a train, for 
it was coming directly from the railroad track. 
It was not a wagon, for it was too long. 

The clicking of Kent’s typewriter told her that 
he was in his tent, and she could hear the voices 
of her grandparents in the back of the house. 
Evidently none of them had noticed the moving 
object, and unable to make any of them hear her, 
she kept her eyes focussed on the approaching 
object. 

So intent was her interest that she did not 
notice when the noise of the typewriter ceased, or 
that Royal Kent had entered the house from his 
tent, until he spoke to her. 

“Now, Princess,” he smiled, “your magician 
has been using the magic carpet again. If you 

will look from your window-” 

“I saw it!” she cried. “Oh, what is it, Royal? 
Is it coming here?” 


172 


The Little House on the Desert 173 

“I am quite sure that your magic carpet is 
carrying those people to you, and it won’t be 
very long before you will see and speak to them.” 

“But what is it?” she begged, her eyes eager 
and her cheeks flushed from excitement. 

“Wait and see!” he answered sagely, and then 
he crossed the room and stood beside her. The 
only thing Mavis could make out was an in¬ 
distinct, elongated, wavering line, like a train. 

Then the old folks, too, became aware of it, 
and at Kent’s suggestion they moved Mavis 
to the front porch, where all of them speculated 
as to what the object might be, where it had 
come from, and where it might be going. 

Grandfather Ruth went into the house and 
opened an old blue wooden chest from which he 
hauled a long spyglass. Returning to the porch 
he handed it to Kent. 

“Your eyes are better than mine, Royal.” 

The younger man peered through the spyglass. 
“Good gracious!” he cried in amazement, look¬ 
ing away from the lens, “Mavis, what do you 
think! There are camels and elephants!” 

“Is it a circus?” She fairly gasped out the 
question. 

Kent again was looking through the tube, 
“No. Better than a circus, I think. It is a 


174 The Little House on the Desert 

motion-picture company. They are probably 
going some place out here to film a desert story. 
That’s why there are camels and elephants.” 

“Oh, Royal! I hope—I hope—they will stop 
here just a few minutes!” cried Mavis. 

Though she had never seen a motion picture, 
Kent had explained all about them to her and 
had related many stories of pictures he had seen. 
The old folks, too, enjoyed Kent’s tales. Like 
Mavis, they had never seen a picture. But Kent 
had the faculty of telling things vividly, and the 
little family had laughed heartily at the big shoes 
of Charlie Chaplin and the troubles he got into, 
wiped tears away at pathetic stories of little 
Mary Pickford, and thrilled over pictures of 
the big-hearted rough Western hero—Bill Hart. 

And now it seemed almost incredible that the 
cavalcade they watched was actually coming 
right toward their own home! But it was true. 
Mavis was sure that the magic carpet had 
brought these people to her. She was speech¬ 
less. Her hands clasped tightly against her 
breast, her lips parted, she hardly dared breathe 
for fear this vision would vanish as mysteriously 
as it had appeared. 

There were many automobiles in which were 
men and women, and one of the machines was 


175 


The Little House on the Desert 

driven to the gate. Grandfather Ruth and 
Kent went to meet the visitors, and Grand¬ 
mother, noticing a lady in the car, joined the 
group and extended an invitation to enter the 
house. 

The lady accepted it with a charming smile, 
and Mavis saw her grandmother and a slender 
woman in a soft gray dress and a big gray hat 
trimmed with violets come toward the porch. 

Never had the little crippled girl dreamed 
there was such a beautiful lady in the world. 
Only a princess could look like that. Then the 
lady was smiling down at her, holding Mavis’s 
hand in her own, and the child flushed shyly at 
the kindly gaze. 

Grandfather and Kent were with the men, but 
Mavis was so engrossed with the lady that she 
hardly noticed when tents were set up not far 
from the house. Very soon rugs were thrown on 
the floors of these tents and brightly colored 
awnings hung inside. Canopies shaded the 
doorways. Everything seemed bustle and con¬ 
fusion, yet there was actually order and system. 

The gawky camels stalked behind men who 
led them, and leaned long necks down to the 
pond. The elephants stamped out into the 
center of the pond and stood there squirting 


176 The Little House on the Desert 

water from their waving trunks over their sides 
and backs. And the old windmill creaked and 
flopped, as though it, too, were anxious to wel¬ 
come the strangers and wanted to help in the 
only way it could. The mill called gaily, 

“ Chuck-chuck-chuck,” as it lifted the 

water from the deep well. Then “clank- 

clank-clank-” it poured a stream of silver 

till the troughs overflowed into the big pond. 

At that moment the most wonderful thing of 
all happened. The lady who had been talking 
to Grandmother Ruth lifted her hand and 
waved it gaily, and Mavis saw a little boy run¬ 
ning toward the porch. A real child! The first 
one the little crippled girl had ever seen in her 
whole life! 

Mavis’s heart thumped and a lump grew in 
her throat. She was so afraid that he would go 
away before she could speak to him. 

But the boy, who was about her own age, 
walked right up to the porch and stopped in 
front of Mavis. There was a friendly smile on 
his face, and an answering smile grew in Mavis’s 
wide blue eyes. 

“Hello!” he said, holding out his hand, which 
she accepted soberly. “What’s your name?” 

“Mavis,” was her shy reply. 






The Little House on the Desert 177 

“Um—um—but what is your real name?” 

“ Mavis,” she repeated wonderingly. 

“Well,” he spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, 
seating himself on the top step of the porch, “I 
wasn’t sure. Most people have two names, you 
know. My real name is John Wells, but in the 
pictures I am Avery Austen, and my mother,” 
he glanced at the lady in gray, “is Dorothy 
Dane. Dad’s the director of this company, you 
know.” 

Mavis stared, too much surprised to utter a 
word, and John, evidently intending to remain 
where he was, began telling her about the people 
with whom he had come. 

Even Royal Kent’s fairy tales seemed hardly 
as strange as what this little boy related to her. 
He told about the big company which was film¬ 
ing a motion picture of Arabia, and how the peo¬ 
ple of Arabia used camels instead of horses, not 
only to ride upon but also to carry their tents 
and provisions, and that the camels could store 
water inside their bodies, so they could go for 
five or six days without having to drink. Then 
he explained that instead of going all the way to 
Arabia, which was far across the ocean and which 
would cost a lot of money, the company had 
come out to the Arizona desert country, where 


178 The Little House on the Desert 

the land and scenery were just the same as in 
parts of Arabia. 

“Of course/’ he added carelessly, “they have 
to fake the Sphinx, but that is easily done with 
cement and boards.” 

Grandmother Ruth smiled at the two children. 
“I guess some cookies and lemonade would taste 
good,” she said, and disappeared into the house. 

In a short time she came back and after John’s 
mother had been served, the plate of cookies 
was set on the broad arm of Mavis’s wheel chair, 
so the two children could help themselves. 

As they munched, they talked, and soon both of 
them forgot they had been strangers only an hour 
before. But a funny little noise under the porch 
caused John to stop talking and listen intently. 

“Did you hear that noise?” he asked. 

Mavis laughed. “Of course I did. That is 
Yappy.” 

Before John could ask the question that was on 
the very tip of his tongue, Mavis called out, 
“Yappy! Come out!” 

“ Yip—yip—yip! ” sounded plainly, and John’s 
eyes opened wide in amazement as the prairie 
dog popped from under the porch. But when 
Yappy saw a stranger, he halted, sat up in alarm, 
and gave the sentinel-call of warning: 


The Little House on the Desert 179 

“Yip—yip—yip!” he barked. 

“Ya—a—a—a—p!” his voice quivered and 
like a flash he darted beneath the porch and was 
silent. 

‘ 4 Gee! I never saw a tame prairie dog before! ’ ’ 
shouted John, fairly tumbling down the front 
steps so that he could lie flat on his stomach to 
look under the porch. But Yappy had lost no 
time hunting a safe hiding place. The prairie 
dog knew Mavis and the family, but he was not 
going to trust any stranger. And though Mavis 
called repeatedly, Yappy merely answered and 
did not come out again that day. 

Then John learned about Yappy and the 
prairie dog village, and how Royal Kent had 
caught the little pet for her. He heard about 
Patrick and Bridget, and Happy Hooligan and 
General Pershing, and later he was introduced 
to the horned toads. That evening when it was 
time to feed the chickens and the Parson, John 
helped Mavis toss the grain and stood near the 
bowl of bread and milk so that the chickens 
could not steal it from the Parson. And the 
next day, while they were both in Mavis’s room, 
Yappy barked beneath the floor, and John 
lifted the board so that the prairie dog could 
come up into the room. Then Yappy, after a. 


180 The Little House on the Desert 

little while, decided that John would not hurt 
him, and made friends. 

For two weeks the company remained near 
the little house. One day Mavis was lifted into 
an automobile with her grandmother, John, and 
John’s mother, and they were all driven for a 
long distance to where the camera-men were 
taking some scenes. Gorgeously dressed men 
and women moved about in immense tents 
hung with beautiful draperies and rugs, and one 
tent had a great throne, where slaves waved 
big feathered fans, and graceful girls danced be¬ 
fore an Arabian monarch. 

A group of horsemen with white flowing robes 
and holding spears and shields fought another 
band of riders. Mavis at first was frightened, 
for she thought they really were trying to kill 
each other. But John assured her that nobody 
would be hurt, and sure enough, after a while, all 
of those who had been fighting so furiously, 
mingled together in the most friendly way. 

Mavis was much confused at learning so many 
new things at once, for John talked about 
“close-ups” and “longshots” and “fade-ins” and 
many other queer things, but he was very pa¬ 
tient in explaining to the little girl, whenever he 
saw she was puzzled. She soon laughed at her- 


The Little House on the Desert 181 

self for being frightened when the director called 
out, “Shoot,” for she found that he only meant 
for the cameramen to take the picture. 

The last night of the motion picture company’s 
stay John’s father and mother had planned a 
surprise for the family who had been so pleasant 
to them all. After supper a large white cloth 
was hung against the wall of the front room and 
a motion picture was shown. Mavis then saw 
how people lived in other places of the world. 
She saw big cities with houses many stories tall; 
crowded streets jammed with automobiles, while 
overhead ran trains of cars. She saw beautiful 
ladies in a ballroom, mountains and mountains 
of snow, and great rushing rivers. There were 
dogs hauling sleds through deep snow drifts, 
and then there was nothing but water. Water 
that rolled into tremendous hills and ships that 
rose high on the crests of the waves, and then 
plunged down as though going to the very bottom 
of the ocean. But a cry of astonishment broke 
from her lips, and her hands clutched the arms 
of her chair, when she saw something that looked 
like a gigantic white bird fly high above the waves, 
and swoop gracefully lower and lower, until it 
poised over a group of people on shore. Then 
swiftly the aeroplane slid down to the ground. 


182 The Little House on the Desert 

Just a motion picture, such as most children 
see so often. But to Mavis, the little crippled 
girl on the desert, not even Aladdin’s magic lamp 
could have brought anything more wonderful— 
almost unbelievable—to her home. 

The next day, when John had to say good-bye 
to his little playmate, he gave her a picture of 
himself and his mother as they had been taken 
in a play together, and he promised that he would 
not forget her. 

And Mavis gave him two of her horned toads 
and the little wagon Royal Kent had made from 
a match box. 

From her place on the porch Mavis watched 
the last gaunt camel stalk with jerky movements 
across the desert sand and finally vanish in the 
distance. Though she missed her first little 
playmate, Mavis was not altogether unhappy, 
for there were so many, many wonderful things 
now to remember. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


K ENT had just returned from his monthly 
trip to town, and in the evening while he 
and the old couple were busily engaged in read¬ 
ing the latest papers Mavis was cutting out 
beautiful colored paper dolls and dresses and 
hats which could be slipped on them. Kent 
had brought them to her. Not until that day 
had she known there were such toys. 

Yappy was trotting about the room while 
Nugget, on top of his cage, sang lustily, even 
though it was dark outside. 

“Listen to this,” Grandpa Ruth spoke sud¬ 
denly. “The paper says that there is a chance 
that the Government Reclamation Service may 
decide to develop water in this section. I won¬ 
der if it would be anywhere near us? There’s a 
map.” 

He handed the newspaper to Royal Kent, who 
spread it on the center table, and the old couple, 
standing beside Kent, looked down upon it. 
“Well,” Kent said after a short silence, during 

183 


184 The Little House on the Desert 

which he had been scrutinizing the map, “it may 
be only a newspaper story, but if it has any 
foundation, this section of yours will come right 
in the heart of the irrigated district. You know 
what that would mean?” He straightened up 
and looked at the old man and woman. “We 
already have a regular Experimental Farm, 
and now that we can show what kind of trees 
can be raised here, we would have no trouble 
getting a loan from a bank. We could enlarge 
our orchard, provided it is true that the survey 
has been completed and approved.” 

The newspaper article had been read by many 
people, and a short time after that evening men 
began arriving in vehicles of all sorts. Each 
man at once started to examine the country 
round about for desirable fend which he hoped 
to acquire. 

The Ruths, pleased at the prospect of neigh¬ 
bors, opened their home and hearts to the new¬ 
comers, and Kent, with Grandpa Ruth, went out 
one day with a man named Thompson, and 
pointed to the time-rotted, desert-chiseled corner 
post which marked the boundary line of the Ruth 
Homestead Claim. 

“It’s pretty badly cut by sand storms,” the 
old man said as he stooped down and pushed 


The Little House on the Desert 185 

aside the soft sand. “ Anyway, you can figure 
out from this corner how my quarter section 
lies.” 

“ You're lucky to find that stake,” laughed 
Thompson. “Out on the real desert the tele¬ 
graph company has to protect the poles with 
heavy galvanized sheet metal to keep the 
drifting sand from cutting entirely through the 
poles. They use steel poles, at that. Can’t 
use the old-time wooden poles long enough to 
pay for putting them up, where the worst sand 
storms occur. The sand cuts into them as a rat 
gnaws into a bit of cheese.” 

The three men were returning to the house as 
Thompson talked, and after they had reached 
the front room. Grandpa Ruth brought out his 
carefully preserved deed to his Homestead. He 
flattened out the document on the table, so that 
Thompson could study it more conveniently. 
Suddenly Thompson gave a low whistle. Then 
he stood up and looked at the old man, who 
stared back. 

“In the name of all goodness!” exclaimed 
Thompson at last. “ Do you know that you have 
filed on the southwest quarter according to your 
deed, but you have built your home on the south¬ 
east quarter!” 


186 The Little House on the Desert 

“No, I haven’t,” declared old man Ruth 
positively. 

But he had. Thompson very carefully studied 
the description of the property, and then exam¬ 
ined a land map which he had brought with him. 
Sadly old man Ruth was forced to acknowledge 
that Thompson was right. In making the 
application years before, Grandpa Ruth had 
described accurately the southwest quarter of 
Section 10, and the Government had issued the 
deed for that particular tract of land. 

The old man had made the mistake of building 
and improving the southeast quarter. Conse¬ 
quently, as Thompson explained, Grandpa Ruth 
had no legal claim to either the southwest or 
the southeast quarter of Section 10. For the 
Homestead Law required permanent residence 
on the land described in claim and a substantial 
house built within five years of filing claim to 
the land. 

Since he had not built as required, upon the 
southwest quarter, or lived on it for the time 
specified, Grandfather Ruth had lost title to 
that land; and as he had not filed on the south¬ 
east quarter according to the law, he had no 
right to the land on which his home and im¬ 
provements stood. For the law very plainly 


The Little House on the Desert 187 

said that any person taking up a homestead quar¬ 
ter section must file a paper giving exact descrip¬ 
tion of any land he wished to own, and must 
place a substantial house and other improve¬ 
ments upon that land and live upon that particu¬ 
lar tract of land. 

And now the old couple realized they had done 
neither one thing nor the other. For until a 
man has lived upon his land and cultivated it, 
he cannot earn the right to a patent from the 
Government; and only through a Government 
patent—or deed—can such land be acquired. 

Mavis looked in bewilderment from Kent and 
Thompson to her grandparents. The old lady 
had settled limply in her favorite rocking chair. 
Her clasped hands trembled in her lap, but she 
did not speak. There were no tears in her eyes 
as she looked s owly from place to place in the 
little room. But the sorrow on her face was more 
pitiful than tears would have been. 

Her eyes rested on Grandpa Ruth who seemed 
suddenly all crumpled up and smaller than ever 
as he leaned over the piece of paper that meant 
he owned no land, no home. 

“I thought it was right all these years,” he said 
tremulously. 

“It’s got to be fixed up somehow,” was Kent’s 


188 The Little House on the Desert 

i 

quick answer. “ Thompson, do you know what 
we had better do? You know more about these 
things than any of us.” 

The other man was staring at the floor and 
frowning. “ Well,” he spoke slowly and thought¬ 
fully, 4 ^ seems to me the best thing to do is for 
Ruth to write a letter to the Registrar of the 
Land Office at Phoenix and ask him how to 
acquire title to the quarter section he really 
wants as his own.” 

Thompson finished speaking and filled his 
pipe, and after cramming the tobacco into the 
bowl, he puffed in silence a few seconds. Then 
he went on, “I’m going to town right away, so 
if you write that letter I’ll get it on its way to 
Phoenix without losing any time.” 

And so the letter was dispatched. A letter 
on which depended so much for the old couple 
and the little crippled girl. And Royal Kent 
waited just as anxiously as they did, day after 
day. 

Twice each week Kent drove the sixty miles 
to the little settlement, hoping for the answer, 
and hoping still more that the answer might bring 
good news to those in the little house on the 
desert. 

But each time he drove back with empty 


The Little House on the Desert 189 

hands and heavy heart. During his trips he 
had learned of the demand for land in the vicin¬ 
ity of the Ruth homestead, and it seemed as 
though nothing could save the claim for Grandpa 
Ruth and his aged wife. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


T HOMPSON had promised that he would 
ask the postmaster of the place where he 
mailed the letter to send any reply without delay 
by a Mexican boy. The boy would he paid for 
the journey by William Ruth when the letter 
was delivered. They all knew that the envelope 
would bear the official return address of the 
Federal Land Office at Phoenix, so the post¬ 
master could easily identify such a letter if 
addressed to William Ruth. 

The nearest post office was ten miles farther 
away than the little settlement where Kent 
usually drove for supplies, but letters from the 
post-office town were carried on horseback to 
the other place. Kent waited hopefully on each 
trip, while Senora Rojas and her little daughter, 
Ramoncita, knowing the trouble, watched just 
as eagerly for the all-important letter. 

Four weeks slipped past. 

Then one day a Mexican boy rode to the gate 
of the little home. Kent hastened to pay him, 

190 


The Little House on the Desert 191 

and the boy unsaddled his pony in the corral. 
The pony had to rest over night after its long 
journey, and the Mexican boy sat in the shade 
of the house, where he drew a mouth-organ from 
his tattered shirt and began to play a Mexican 
air. 

Grandpa Ruth’s hands were trembling as he 
tore open the large envelope. 

Mavis now understood the reason for Kent’s 
trips and her grandparents’ anxiety. At night 
as she lay awake, listening for the signal of her 
unknown trainmen friends, she prayed that God 
would let the old couple keep their home, for 
she knew how dearly they loved it. And she 
herself had no desire to move away to any other 
home. 

Now, with the old folks, she listened while 
Kent read the letter which Grandfather Ruth 
had handed to him, saying, “Read it to us, 
Royal!” 

And Royal Kent knew that the old man dared 
not trust himself to read the words which might 
mean the loss of the home. 

In courteous but very official terms which 
Mavis did not understand the letter stated that 
the southeast quarter section had already been 
classed as an isolated tract, and consequently 


192 The Little House on the Desert 

William Ruth, or any other qualified person, 
would be able to bid on it when it should be 
sold to the highest bidder at public auction in 
the near future. Then the date of the sale was 
given. 

The letter went on to explain very fully that 
all the rest of Section 10 had been filed upon 
many years previously. It had not been ac¬ 
quired under the Homestead Law, like the Ruth 
land, but by what was known as Land Scrip. 
Each quarter section had its own divisions, and 
was numbered on the land maps. The even- 
numbered quarter sections might be called the 
red blocks of a checkerboard, while the odd- 
numbered quarter sections would be the black 
blocks. 

Now these black blocks, or odd-numbered 
quarter sections, belonged to the railroad com¬ 
pany. For when the railroad ran through the 
unsettled country, it acquired the odd-numbered 
sections under a land grant from the Congress 
of the United States, and this right extended 
for a distance of twenty miles on either side of 
its lines. So the railroad owning the odd-num¬ 
bered, or black blocks, and the even-numbered, 
or red blocks, having been claimed by Land 
Scrip, there was left a small part of adjacent 


The Little House on the Desert 193 

land which was classed as isolated land. Such 
land was subject to auction sale. 

“Hence/’ the letter from the Registrar went on 
to say, “ the only way by which you could acquire 
title to the southeast quarter of Section 10 
would be to attend the public auction and offer 
the highest bid for that particular tract of land.” 

It took some time for them to understand all 
this, and Royal Kent kept reading different land 
laws from the little paper books which the Reg¬ 
istrar had forwarded to them with his letter. 

“Offer the highest bid,” echoed Grandpa 
Ruth slowly, as he shook his white head. Ever 
since he had discovered his error about the land, 
he had seemed too dazed to think quickly. But 
his old wife smiled at him. 

“It’s going to work out right, some way, Pa,” 
she said. 

Mavis saw her grandfather’s eyes lifted to the 
picture of President McKinley. Her chair was 
near enough so that she could reach out and 
touch the wrinkled hand of the old man. The 
touch roused him, and with a deep breath he 
turned and smiled. Patting the little hand 
gently, he spoke cheerfully, “That’s so, Mother. 
It’s bound to come out all right.” 

As he spoke he opened the table drawer and 


194 The Little House on the Desert 

took out a pencil and writing tablet. 46 Let’s do 
some figuring, Royal. Government Land usually 
sells for a dollar and a quarter an acre, and a 
quarter section has a hundred and sixty acres. 
That means that the lowest bid must be two hun¬ 
dred dollars for the quarter section. They won’t 
cut it up into any smaller tracts, you know.” 

He glanced at Grandma Ruth, and she read 
his thoughts. A hundred and fifty dollars in a 
Savings Bank was all they had ahead, and when 
Kent learned that fact, he added another 
hundred dollars—all the money he owned. So 
they knew that between them all they would be 
able to bid the lowest price on the tract, and that 
there would be fifty dollars more to offer, in case 
any one raised the first bid on the little home and 
the land surrounding it. 

“Maybe no one else will bid but ourselves,” 
Grandmother Ruth said brightly, and a load 
seemed to have been lifted from all their hearts. 

Mavis picked up her doll and began undress¬ 
ing it for the night, Grandma sang in a quavering 
voice as she moved about the kitchen preparing 
the evening meal, and Nugget after circling the 
room twice flew to the top of a picture and his 
golden-throated notes filled the little home, 
i It was through just a slight error years before. 


195 


The Little House on the Desert 

wlien the old man had been filing his claim, that 
all the worry and risk of losing their home had 
arisen; and now through an omission which 
none of the little family knew further complica¬ 
tions were accumulating. 

In his haste and anxiety, when Grandfather 
Ruth had written to the Registrar of the Land 
Office at Phoenix, he had not stated how he had 
made an error in his claim years before, nor 
had he told about the long years he had lived on 
the southeast section, which he had believed 
to be legally his own. 

Grandfather Ruth in his letter had only asked 
how he could acquire the southeast quarter of 
Section 10, and the Registrar had replied to that 
one question. 

Had the old man stated all the facts, the tract 
of land on which the little home had been built 
would have been at once withdrawn from the 
market and the error made so many years before 
would have been corrected by the Federal Land 
Office, so that never again would any question 
arise as to William Ruth’s right to his home. 

But the old man had not explained the real 
situation, and so the officials did not know any¬ 
thing about it when the time set for the public 
auction arrived. 


CHAPTER XXV 


R OYAL KENT and Grandfather Ruth were 
among the first of those who crowded the 
room of the local land office on the day of the sale, 
and when the Registrar, acting as auctioneer, 
began reading descriptions of the different tracts 
of land to be sold, voices rang out from various 
men. Sometimes one man would make an offer 
of a certain price, only to have someone else 
offer more money for the same land. And in 
this way the price on certain tracts was in¬ 
creased much more than the original dollar and a 
quarter an acre. Nothing less than a dollar and 
a quarter could be accepted by the Registrar. 

“If any one bids against us,” whispered old 
man Ruth to Kent, “we will have that extra 
fifty dollars to offer.” 

“Yes,” replied the young man in a low tone, 
“we are lucky about that, for the law compels 
immediate cash payment at time of sale. There 
would be no chance to borrow any money.” 
There were twelve scattered tracts put up for 

196 , 


The Little House on the Desert 197 

sale, and the bidders lost no time in their offers 
to buy. The hopeful light in old man Ruth’s 
eyes faded slowly and Kent’s face wore a worried 
look. Not one tract of land was sold at the 
first bid, and in most cases when the final bid 
had been made the price had reached three or 
four times the original sum offered. 

From the descriptions Kent knew that none 
of these places had any improvements on them, 
not even a fence, while on the property of old 
man Ruth stood a comfortable house, good well, 
windmill, barn, and all the young thrifty trees 
which Kent had planted for their Experimental 
Farm. Then, too, there was the big pond with 
its little ditches leading to every tree. 

Kent had tinkered and mended wherever he 
found the need, so the entire place was in ex¬ 
cellent condition. He had been more than re¬ 
paid for his interest and help, not only by the 
affection of the whole family but also by the 
improvement in his health. His cough was en¬ 
tirely gone and his cheeks, that had been so pale 
and hollow when he had first ridden up to the 
little house on the desert, were now full, firm, and 
tanned. Nobody knew better than he how much 
he owed to the little family and to the healing 
touch of the desert. 


198 The Little House on the Desert 

He knew that at that very moment Grandma 
Ruth was waiting with anxious heart, fearing 
that the place which had been her home for so 
many years might be sold to someone else who 
had more money. 

And while Royal Kent was thinking of all 
this, he had worries of his own. The book he 
had written so hopefully during the hours in his 
tent had come back with a nicely printed note, 
politely saying that the publishers could not use 
the story. The fact that the note said, “rejec¬ 
tion does not imply lack of merit” was a little 
encouragement to him at first. But after ten 
different publishers had returned his manuscript 
with exactly the same politely worded note, 
Royal Kent decided that there was something 
really wrong with the story, and that his efforts 
had resulted in complete failure. 

He had told no one, not even Mavis, who 
shared nearly all his secrets, that he had been 
writing with one object, and that had been the 
hope of earning enough money to send his little 
friend to some big city where she might be 
examined by a skilled surgeon to determine 
whether there was a chance of enabling her to 
walk like other children. 

And when the manuscript came back, each 


199 


The Little House on the Desert 

time he had rewritten the story and sent it off 
to another publisher. But at last he was con¬ 
vinced that no publisher would accept it, and 
he put it aside. 

Kent had no extra money of his own. Nearly 
all his savings from years of earnest work in the 
East had been spent when he was ill. The small 
amount left after paying his doctor, nurse, and 
hospital bill, had enabled him to get to Arizona 
and buy his camp outfit. Now, almost a year 
later, he was well and strong, and would be able 
to work and earn his living, but there was just 
one hundred dollars of his money left. 

That sum he had handed to Grandfather Ruth 
to help save the little home. 

The noon hour arrived and business in the 
land office was suspended while everyone went 
out to lunch. The Ruth homestead had not 
yet been put up for sale. 

Kent, looking back as he and Grandpa left 
the room, was surprised to see Thompson, who 
had been the one to discover the error in the 
title to the Ruth home, talking very confiden¬ 
tially with the auctioneer. Then Thompson 
and the auctioneer, still talking earnestly to¬ 
gether, went into a private room and the door 
was closed. 


200 The Little House on the Desert 

All during the time Kent and Grandpa Ruth 
were sitting in a little lunch room, each pretend¬ 
ing to eat, but too worried to take more than a 
few mouthfuls, the young man was thinking of 
Thompson and the auctioneer, and wondering 
what they were talking about in that private 
room. It seemed as though there could be but 
one subject, Kent was almost sure that Thomp¬ 
son wanted to get the Ruth homestead for 
himself. Thompson knew how much it would 
cost to improve a tract as this one was improved. 

After lunch the old man and Kent returned 
to the room where already many had preceded 
them. A few minutes later Thompson emerged 
from the private room, followed by the Registrar. 

Royal Kent’s eyes flashed angrily as he met 
Thompson’s gaze. Then Thompson turned 
away and sat down near the table where the 
Registrar now stood, ready to resume the sales. 

Kent remembered how Grandfather Ruth had 
invited Thompson into the little home, and how 
the old lady had made him welcome to the best 
that she had been able to provide. Yet now 
there seemed no room for any doubt that Thomp¬ 
son was planning to bid up to a high figure when 
the Ruth tract was offered for sale. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


T HE southeast quarter of Section 10,” began 
the Registrar in a loud voice. 

Grandfather Ruth started and laid a trembling 
hand on Royal Kent’s arm, and the young man 
looked down into the tragic eyes of the old 
soldier. Years before, William Ruth had faced 
the sentence of death when he had been innocent 
of wrong. But Kent knew that what the old 
man was now facing was a harder test of his 
courage than even that other trial had been. 

“The southeast quarter of Section 10,” they 
heard the auctioneer saying, “is an isolated 
tract, and lies within the railroad grant which 
extends twenty miles either side of the railroad 
bed. Consequently this land is classified as 
double-minimum land, and the least bid that 
the Government will accept is two dollars and 
fifty cents per acre for the entire tract of one 
hundred and sixty acres. Had the land been 
farther than twenty miles from the railroad 
tracks, the bidding would have started at the 
201 


202 The Little House on the Desert 

usual minimum of one dollar and a quarter per 
acre. Who starts the bid at four hundred dollars 
for the southeast quarter of Section 10?” 

Kent heard a low moan from Grandfather 
Ruth and, unable to contain himself any longer, 
the young man pushed forward until he faced 
the Registrar. Then he lifted his hand, but did 
not speak. Every eye was on Kent, and old 
man Ruth stared at him in bewilderment. 

Kent knew that Thompson was leaning for¬ 
ward in his chair, and the treachery of the man 
increased Kent’s anger. 

44 Please,” Kent spoke very determinedly, “be¬ 
fore any one starts bidding on the southeast 
quarter of Section 10, will you allow me to tell 
how very valuable that tract of land really is?” 

He looked straight into the eyes of the Regis¬ 
trar, and the official after a slight pause nodded 
his head. 

“Go on,” he replied. “But be brief.” 

Royal Kent turned toward the faces that 
seemed to him at that moment to be beyond 
counting. And to him each face meant a man 
who wanted to take the little home away from 
Mavis, old man Ruth and his aged wife. 

There was scarcely the sound of breathing in 
the room as Royal Kent, in simple words, told 


The Little House on the Desert 203 

of the years of labor, of the old veteran, the aged 
grandmother, and the little crippled girl who 
waved to the trains as they dashed past the home 
on the desert. He told the story of the old 
soldier and Captain McKinley, and then his 
voice trembled as he spoke of the grandson of 
William Ruth, William McKinley Ruth, the 
father of little Mavis, who was lying in an uni¬ 
dentified grave on a battlefield of France. He 
told of how T the Service Flag with one gold star 
hung over that young soldier’s picture in the 
little house on the desert. Then he told of a 
grave not far from the house, where the mother 
of the crippled child slept peacefully. 

“So now,” he spoke very slowly as he looked 
from one to the other of the faces about him, 
“whoever of you buys the southeast quarter of 
Section 10 will know how valuable that tract 
of land really is.” 

He stopped and went over to where William 
Ruth was sitting with bowed head. The old 
man’s face was hidden in his hands and his frail 
body was shaken with sobs that he tried to 
suppress. 

Tense silence held them all as the Registrar’s 
voice rang clearly through the room: “One hun¬ 
dred and sixty acres at two dollars and fifty 


204 The Little House on the Desert 

cents an acre. Who bids on the southeast quar¬ 
ter of Section 10?” 

No one spoke. Again and again the auctioneer 
called without receiving any bid. Then he 
turned quickly to Grandpa Ruth who lifted his 
face, wet with tears. 

“W T hy don’t you bid on your home, William 
Ruth?” 

The old soldier who had never flinched in many 
storms of bullets during the days of ’61 rose to 
his feet and braced himself to face the loss of his 
home. 

“I haven’t enough money,” he answered with 
simple dignity. “You said it will cost two 
dollars and fifty cents an acre, and that means 
four hundred dollars. All we could scratch up 
was two hundred and fifty dollars. Royal Kent 
gave me a hundred of that, and he hasn’t any 
more money, either.” 

Kent’s hands clenched and his mouth closed 
tightly as he noticed Thompson smile and whis¬ 
per to the Registrar, who nodded assent to what 
Thompson was saying. 

Then Thompson, standing beside the Reg¬ 
istrar, held up his hand to command attention. 
Everyone in the room leaned forward to listen. 

So intent were they all upon Thompson that 


The Little House on the Desert 205 

none of them noticed the twinkle in the eyes of 
the Registrar. Thompson pulled his weather¬ 
beaten cowboy hat from his head and held it out 
before him. 

“Come along, folks,” he cried loudly. “Pay 
your debts! You all owe a heap to William 
Ruth. Come and try to pay him for the four 
years he followed the flag in the days of ’61. 
Come along and pay just a mite of what you owe 
William McKinley Ruth, the father of little 
Mavis, an American boy who sleeps in an un¬ 
known grave in France. It’s not charity you 
are giving to the family of these two soldiers. 
You are just paying a little bit of interest on the 
big debt that neither you, nor I, nor all America 
can ever pay in full!” 

Someone started a cheer, and the others took 
it up until the little room resounded with their 
cries. Everyone pressed forward, each one eager 
to do his part, and the clinking silver dollars that 
fell into the battered old hat Thompson held 
out were deadened by crumpled bank notes. 

Grandfather Ruth stood with tears coursing 
down his wrinkled cheeks and his white beard 
trembling against his breast. Tears of joy, such 
as he had shed that other day when his captain 
had honored him before his comrades. 


206 The Little House on the Desert 

And as in the bygone day those comrades had 
crowded about to shake his hand, so now he 
saw other faces, strange faces and yet in them 
all was reflected the same comradeship. Their 
hands were outstretched to grasp his own. 

Thompson stood before the old man, holding 
the weighted hat toward him. “It’s not char¬ 
ity,” said Thompson. “We all owe you this, and 
you’ve got to let us pay part of our debt.” 

And then, as the auctioneer again began crying 
out, silence fell in the room. 

“What am I bid for this tract of land, starting 
at two dollars and fifty cents an acre for one 
hundred and sixty acres?” 

He waited a bid. 

Then in the tense silence Grandfather Ruth’s 
quavering voice was heard, “I bid every cent I 
own and all that you folks put into the hat!” 

Nobody knew how much money was in the 
hat, and the auctioneer ordered it to be counted. 

The men crowded closely about Kent and 
Thompson while they counted and made two 
little heaps of money on the table. One pile 
was of silver coins, the other was of worn and 
crumpled greenbacks. 

“Five hundred and fifteen dollars and twenty- 
two cents!” cried Thompson. 


The Little House on the Desert 207 

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted every man in 
the room. 

The gavel in the hand of the Registrar rapped 
sharply on the table. 

“Starting at four hundred dollars for the 
southeast quarter of Section 10, what am I 
offered?” 

“Bid four hundred,” Thompson whispered to 
Grandfather Ruth. “Don’t bid one cent more 
than that.” 

“Four hundred.” The old man’s voice was 
clear and steady now and his wrinkled face shone 
with happiness. 

“Do I hear a higher bid?” asked the auction¬ 
eer. No one moved. No one spoke. 

The auctioneer raised his gavel slowly. “ Go¬ 
ing at two dollars and fifty cents an acre. Go¬ 
ing-going-gone! Sold to William Ruth! ” 

Bang! The gavel came down upon the table 
and the silver coins jingled and danced as though 
in sheer joy at knowing they were helping to save 
the old soldier’s home for him. 

Never had the Land Office heard such deafen¬ 
ing cheers within its walls. Never had men 
reached out more gladly to shake the hand of 
another man. 

There were rough men in that room, and the 




208 The Little House on the Desert 

hands that were held out to Grandfather Ruth 
were calloused from hard work. But more than 
one of the men was openly wiping his eyes or 
coughing huskily because of a lump in his throat 
as he crowded nearer to the old soldier who stood 
smiling into the faces of all his new friends. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


S UNLIGHT flickered on a needle as Mavis, 
sitting in her accustomed place at the win¬ 
dow, was making a new dress for her doll, while 
Yappy nosed about the room and Nugget sere¬ 
naded them all. 

h The home was, indeed, a little house of happi¬ 
ness. Since the day of the auction sale, other 
children in far-away places had learned of the 
little crippled girl, and many of them had written 
letters to her, telling about their games, their 
friends, and their pets. The story of how the 
home had been saved for the old soldier and his 
family had been printed in a big newspaper and 
so a great many people became interested and 
sent kindly letters. 

Kent, too, received many letters, for the news¬ 
paper article described how the young man had 
told the story of the little home. One of the 
letters which he opened was a great surprise, as 
it had been written by the father of little John 
Wells. Mr. Wells, who had been directing the 

209 


210 The Little House on the Desert 

picture which was partly taken near the Ruth 
home, was now one of the head men of the whole 
company. He had not forgotten the old soldier 
and the family in the little home. 

He wrote that he had read the story about the 
auction sale, and that if there were any way in 
which he could assist them, he would be glad to 
do so. But the most wonderful part of the letter 
sent Royal Kent in a hurry to his typewriter. 
He kept the keys clicking steadily from that 
time on. 

For he was writing the story of the old soldier 
and the little house on the desert. John’s 
father had suggestedthatKentshould do this and, 
when finished, bring the story to him to read. 

Then Mr. Wells would write more things in 
the story, and maybe it could be turned into a 
motion-picture play, and have John’s mother 
and John in it, too. 

He said, also, that Kent might use the story 
for a book after it was arranged for a motion 
picture, and that Mr. Wells would help him in 
every way possible to make a success of the story. 

So a week before Christmas Royal Kent said 
good-bye to his friends and started for Los 
Angeles, carrying the manuscript of the com¬ 
pleted story. 


The Little House on the Desert £11 

The family waited impatiently for his return. 
Even though the story might not suit Mr. Wells, 
the welcome home for Royal Kent would be just 
as hearty as though he were to come back 
crowned with the most brilliant success. No one 
but Kent himself knew why he was so eager to 
sell the story. 

Mavis glanced up from her sewing to wave at 
a passing train. Many times that day she had 
scanned the flat country and now, at last, was 
her reward. 

“ He is coming! He is coming! ” her voice was 
shrill with delight. “Oh, Granny—look! He 
is waving his hat! He said if I saw him wave 
his hat it would mean good news! Oh—oh— 
loot—look!” 

Almost hysterical with happiness the child 
waved her handkerchief and the old lady, too, an¬ 
swered the signal with her hand. But Grandpa 
Ruth, forgetting how old his legs were, ran into 
the front room, seized the long spyglass, and has¬ 
tened to the porch. One peep through the lens 
was enough for him. 

Bump - hump - hump . 

The noise sounded on the front porch and 
Grandmother Ruth rushed to see what was 
happening. 



212 The Little House on the Desert 

“ Well, I’ll be switched!” she ejaculated as she 
caught a glimpse of the old man. “Mavis! 
I believe your great-grandfather has gone com¬ 
pletely crazy!” 

When William Ruth’s wife spoke of him as a 
great-grandfather it was a momentous occasion. 
But no wonder she had been astounded, for 
William Ruth, aged eighty years and stiff in the 
joints for many, many decades past, was dancing 
up and down and cutting pigeon-wings such as 
he had done when he and Grandma had danced 
together in the days of their youth. And as he 
cavorted and pranced, he kept waving the long 
spyglass around his silvery head. 

When the old lady came out on the porch he 
seized her about the waist, and in spite of her 
protest and exclamations, somehow she could 
not help keeping step with him for a few turns. 

Then laughing sheepishly, they both moved 
toward the gate as Royal Kent jumped from the 
buckboard. 

“I signed the contract!” he cried gaily. “Mr. 
Wells says it will make a fine picture.” 

So busy were they all, laughing and talking to¬ 
gether, that for a time no one remembered the 
team at the gate. The two ponies, after a short 
interval, evidently decided that no driver was 


The Little House on the Desert 213 

necessary to guide them to the corral. They 
turned very carefully about and walked to the 
big gate where, rubbing their noses against each 
other’s necks, they waited patiently to be un¬ 
harnessed. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


✓ 


I T WAS midnight of Christmas Eve and the 
little house on the desert was dark and quiet, 
for those under its humble roof slept peacefully. 

As though a fairy had waved a magic wand, 
strange things began happening. Across the 
flat country a train came very slowly, almost as 
though it were sneaking along, and no whistle 
broke the silence. Then the train stopped and 
from it descended many men, each of whom 
carried parcels in his arms. 

Softly they trod when they neared the little 
home, and after leaving their bundles at the door, 
they hastened back to the train. It slipped on 
its way again, and not until it was some distance 
away did the accustomed whistle blow. 

Mavis awakened at the sound and smiled. 
The lamp was burning brightly at the window. 

Again all was silence on the desert, until an¬ 
other train crept from the darkness in the op¬ 
posite direction from the first train. The second 
train also stopped without a whistle, and more 

214 


The Little House on the Desert 215 

men sneaked up to the house and left more 
bundles at the door. 

So through that Christmas Eve on the desert 
the trainmen to whom the child had signalled so 
faithfully brought their gifts to the little crippled 
girl. Permission had been given each train 
crew to stop long enough to leave their Christmas 
greetings and remembrances for her. 

Morning dawned bright and beautiful, as 
though the sun were determined to shine its 
very best upon that day, for that was the sun’s 
gift. Very, very early, Grandma Ruth was astir, 
and holding the simple little gifts she had kept 
carefully hidden, she passed through the sitting 
room to lay the small parcels at each plate. 

They were very small parcels, and few people 
would have cared for such gifts as those in the 
tissue paper. But not all the money of the 
whole world could have bought more love than 
was wrapped with those little gifts. 

Having arranged the surprises at the right 
plates, the old lady, smiling happily to herself, 
went across the sitting room and looked out 
over the flat. 

Why! There were a lot of things piled on the 
porch. 

In a second, almost, she had opened the door. 


216 The Little House on the Desert 

And then she stopped short. A tall tree laden 
with beautiful ornaments and mysterious-looking 
parcels met her astonished eyes. At the foot of 
the tree were heaped bundles large and small, and 
in front of them all was a beautiful wheeled chair. 

She choked down her cry of joy and wiped 
away the tears that were blinding her. Then, 
as the sun shone on her silver hair, she knelt 
beside the tree, her trembling wrinkled hands 
clasped together and her eyes lifted to the sky, 
while her lips moved in a prayer of thanksgiving 
to the Other Child—the Divine Child who, cen¬ 
turies before, had been born in a manger. 

Rising to her feet she hurried to tell Grand¬ 
father Ruth and Royal Kent of the miracle that 
had happened in the night. Then after much 
whispering and laying of fingers on lips while 
they all kept watch on the door of Mavis’s little 
room, the two men tugged cautiously at the 
tree while the old lady quietly moved pieces of 
furniture, and at last the tree stood safe and 
sound in all its glory inside the front room And 
here the bundles were heaped around the new 
wheeled chair. 

Grandmother Ruth never was able to recall 
how or when she cooked breakfast that morning. 
And neither Grandfather Ruth nor Royal Kent 


217 


The Little House on the Desert 

could explain it any better than she could. But 
after the meal had been prepared and Mavis had 
been dressed, Kent went into the little room and 
lifted the child in his arms. 

Very carefully he placed her in the crude 
wheeled chair which he had made for her so many 
months before. Then Grandma held open the 
door into the sitting room, and Mavis sat staring 
with wide-opened violet-blue eyes at the won¬ 
derful vision. 

Those who loved her so dearly, watching her 
incredulous delight, could see her only dimly, for 
their eyes were blurred by happy tears. 

“Oh—oh!” they heard her whisper as though 
to herself, “I didn’t know there was anything so 
beautiful in the whole world!” 

Her little hands flew up to her breast and were 
clasped tightly against it, and for a few seconds 
no one spoke. Then she turned toward Royal 
Kent. “Where did it come from?” she asked. 

“No one knows, ’ ’ he replied. ‘ ‘ The tree and par¬ 
cels and chair were on the porch this morning.” 

“Oh, I knew there were real fairies and a real 
Santa Claus,” cried Mavis, and they all agreed 
with her. 

“The Spirit of Love,” Grandmother whis¬ 
pered softly to herself. Then she was roused 


218 The Little House on the Desert 

by a knock at the door. When she opened it 
there was still another surprise. Grandmother 
Ruth stood blinking through her spectacles at 
many strange faces which were smiling at her. 

“Our train stopped to let us bring our Christ¬ 
mas wishes,” said one of the men, stepping 
forward and entering the room. The others 
crowded in after him, and on the lap of the little 
girl the spokesman laid a purse. It was a large 
purse and quite heavy. 

“This is from the passengers of our train. 
The conductor told us about the tree and the 
other things for the little girl who never forgot 
to signal them when they passed her home. So 
the passengers wanted to add a gift to those of 
the trainmen.” 

Then a very handsome, dignified gentleman 
stepped to the side of Mavis’s chair and in a 
quiet, kindly voice, he asked many questions of 
the old folks. All the questions were about how 
long Mavis had been lame, and what had been 
done for her. 

And while the other visitors helped Mavis open 
her gifts, the gentleman explained to the Ruths 
and to Royal Kent that he was a surgeon, and 
had studied several years under a very famous 
surgeon named Lorenz, in the Children’s Hospital 


The Little House on the Desert 219 

of Vienna. And Kent nodded, for he knew that 
Doctor Lorenz’s miraculous hands had cured 
many crippled children. 

And so the surgeon who had come from the 
train told them all that he was sure Mavis could 
be made perfectly strong. In time she would 
run about and play as other children did. 

He added that his own services were his gift 
to the little girl, and that the trainmen who had 
first told him about her had made up a sufficient 
sum of money to have her go to a fine hospital in 
a large city and stay there until she was per¬ 
fectly well. After that each of the visitors shook 
hands with Grandfather and Grandmother Ruth, 
and many a man, remembering his own little 
ones, stooped down and kissed the flushed cheek 
of the child in the crude wheeled chair. 

“Good-bye and a merry, merry Christmas!” 
they cried as they all started for the train, which, 
snorting and puffing, awaited their return. 

As the train began to move on its way, the 
whistle called back to those in the little home: 

Hooo - eee - ooo. Ho — ho — ho! It sounded 

like happy laughter. 

But that was not the only train to stop that 
day. Eastbound, Westbound, the trainmen 
brought their gifts and kindly messages—then 


220 The Little House on the Desert 

sped on their way to distant places. But each 
man carried with him the memory of the shin¬ 
ing eyes of the little girl who sat in her new 
wheeled chair. After the family were alone. 
Mavis looked up at Kent and said, “Royal, the 
new chair is awfully nice, but I think I like the 
old one best. The one you made for me!” 

And Kent understood as he leaned down and 
kissed her cheek. 

Night crept softly across the desert and folded 
the little house beneath its dark cloak. Stars 
twinkled like laughing eyes, as though baby 
angels had poked holes through the sky that 
they might be able to peep down at another 
world from their own. 

But there was one big star that gleamed se¬ 
renely. Its radiance bathed the silent desert 
and shone through a window where it touched the 
upturned happy face of a little crippled child. 

It was a wonderful star! 

Even the centuries that had passed since it 
had shone above a stable in Bethlehem had been 
powerless to dim its light. 

And so it gleamed serenely down upon the 
Little House on the Desert. 


THE END 









































































